Altering the accessor of an association collection

Rails
1

I want to be able to do something like this (for example):

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :friends

def friends(living_in = :uk)
# filter based on parameters here
end
end

Is there any way I can redefine the accessor for an association whilst
still being able to get the values? Basically, I’m looking for an
equivilent of read_attribute() for associations.

2

Actually don’t worry about this, I changed my code so I don’t need it.

3

On 2.1.2006, at 14.24, Jon L. wrote:

I want to be able to do something like this (for example):

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :friends

def friends(living_in = :uk)
# filter based on parameters here
end

You can use the automatic Active Record methods for this, too:

jake = Person.find :first
jake.friends.find_all_by_living_in(“uk”)

If you think it’s worth it, you can also write your own friends
method. I can’t really see a reason for that, though. Maybe I
misunderstood something.

//jarkko

4

Jarkko L. wrote:

On 2.1.2006, at 14.24, Jon L. wrote:

I want to be able to do something like this (for example):

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :friends

def friends(living_in = :uk)
# filter based on parameters here
end

You can use the automatic Active Record methods for this, too:

jake = Person.find :first
jake.friends.find_all_by_living_in(“uk”)

If you think it’s worth it, you can also write your own friends
method. I can’t really see a reason for that, though. Maybe I
misunderstood something.

Perhaps my example wasn’t the best – it’s actually just a simplified
example of something I’m doing which isn’t anything to do with People or
Friends.

Basically I have a recursive object which makes up a tree of nodes –
imagine friends being of class Person as well (so I guess it would have
been better to say “has_many :people” or something). Sometimes I would
want friends and its all descendants; sometimes I just want friends; and
sometimes I want friends, and descendants, excluding where a boolean
attribute is true.

Anyway, thanks for the info; I hadn’t thought of calling finders on a
collection like that, but I’ve found an adaquate way to solve the
problem.

Cheers