Question

My Code:

  class  ActiveRecord::Base  
      def clone!(options = {})
        defaults = {:except => [:updated_at, :cerated_at, :id], :shallow => []}
        options = defaults.merge(options)

        skip_attributes = options[:except] or false #attributes not to clone at all
        shallow_attributes = options[:shallow] or false # non-recursivly cloned attributes
        options[:except] << self.class.to_s.foreign_key # add current class to exceptions to prevent infinite loop

        new_model = self.class.new

        self.attributes.each_pair do |attribute, value|
          skip_attribute = (skip_attributes ? skip_attributes.map{|a| a.to_s}.include?(attribute) : false)
          next if skip_attribute

          shallow_copy = (shallow_attributes ? shallow_attributes.map{|s| s.to_s}.include?(attribute) : false)

          if attribute =~ /_id\z/ and (not shallow_copy)
            # assume reference to a different object
            model_table_name = attribute.gsub(/_id\z/, "")
            model_name = model_table_name.camelize

            referenced_object = model_name.constantize.find(value).clone!(options)
            puts attribute.inspect
            puts referenced_object.inspect
            new_model.send("#{attribute}=", referenced_object[:id])
          else
            new_model.send("#{attribute}=", value) 
          end
        end

        new_model.save!
      end
    end

So, one way to call the method is to do:

b = MyObject.find(432).clone!({:shallow => [:account_id, :user_id, :ext_integration_id, :category_id], :except => [:closed_comment_id]})

The issue is MyObject HAS MANY OtherObjects, so MyObject itsself doesn’t directly reference the OtherObjects, because the OtherObjects have the foreign key to MyObject.

How do I find out what the names of the models are that have this relationship?

Answer 1

This gem does the trick:

https://github.com/DerNalia/deep_cloning

currently has the most features of any of the deep_cloning gems.

Tested on 1.8.7 with Rails 2.3.8