Question

What is the recommended way to wrap an ActiveRecord accessor?

Given something like

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :comments
end

class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :post
end

I would like to be able to make it that, for example, @post.comments returns randomly sorted comments.

Of course I could create another method, like random_comments, but I would like to know if there’s a less error prone way (I don’t want to have to remember to call the random_comments method).

Calling super doesn’t work, as the comments method is created reflectively on the Post class and not inherited.

So how would you do it?

Answer 1

Hope this helps..

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :comments

  def comments_with_randomness
    comments_without_randomness.shuffle
  end

  alias_method_chain :comments, :randomness
end

Now, calling @post.comments should return comments in random order. But, remember, it would be an array and not an active relation.