Question

I’m writing a feature in my application which is used to clone a whole load of activerecord models and their hierachy. So that I accidentaly don’t change the original records I am using the #readonly feature on relations, which is great.

I am using the #clone method to copy those original objects, but there seems to be no way to remove the readonly status on the cloned objects which means I can’t save the new objects I have created.

If I load the original objects without using #readonly then it works fine, but then I run the risk of the original records accidentally being deleted.

How can I remove the readonly status?

Answer 1

Use instance_variable_set?

my_obj = Object.where(:stuff, :readonly => true)
my_obj.x = "y" 
my_obj.save! #readonly exception
my_obj.send(:instance_variable_set, :@readonly, false)
my_obj.save! #succeeds

I’m not sure if there’s a cleaner way though!