Question

I’m having trouble with a model not honoring the :foreign_key policy.

Character model has the following fields:
name:string
level:int
realm:string
realm_id:integer

class Character < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :realm

end

My Realms model looks like this:

class Realm < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :characters, :foreign_key => "realm_id"

end

However, it seems like it’s forcing the character model to use the :realm column as the foreign_key rather than :realm_id. I don’t have any clue as to why or how to fix it. Is there any other way to make it ignore the :realm field and go for the :realm_id without having to change the name of the column?

[Edit for clarity]

The character model does have a realm_id:integer field. I have tried not having the foreign_key but the results with both is identical.

ruby-1.9.2-p136 :012 > c = Character.new
=> #

ruby-1.9.2-p136 :013 > c.realm = “Sargeras”

ActiveRecord::AssociationTypeMismatch: Realm(#2154038240) expected, got String(#2151988680)

Despite even having the foreign_key, it just refuses to let go of the realm column.

[Edit 2]

The realm column will just take over due to the has_many and belongs_to association. There is no way so far to break this, so the solution is to either remove the column (the approach i will take), or rename it to something different.

Answer 1

You should not need the :foreign_key part here at all, since you’re following the standard Rails naming convention, the realm_id column should be inferred from the model name.

EDIT

I see. I don’t think you can have a column and an association by the same name in one model. The easiest solution would probably be to rename the “realm” column to “realmname” or something like that.