# Help: Namespaced Model Weirdness

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-namespaced-model-weirdness/117673>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [October 19, 2007, 6:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-namespaced-model-weirdness/117673 "2007-10-19T06:14:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/starmaerker)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 6:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-namespaced-model-weirdness/117673/1 "2007-10-19T06:14:21Z")

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Hi,

I am desperately in need of some help.

I have a Rails app that involves namespaced models. In /app/models/x/  
y.rb

I have

class X::Y \< ActiveRecord::Base

blah  
blah

end

On my dev machine (OS X, ruby 1.8.6, rails 1.2.5), all works fine.  
However on my production machine (Ubuntu 6.0.6 LTS, ruby 1.8.6, rails  
1.2.5), the namespaced models refuse to work.

On the dev machine, I can reference the classes in script/console  
Loading development environment.

> > X::Y  
> > =\> X::Y

If I run script/console on the production server, I get:

Loading development environment.

> > X::Y  
> > NameError: uninitialized constant X  
> > from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-1.4.4/lib/  
> > active\_support/dependencies.rb:266:in `load_missing_constant' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-1.4.4/lib/ active_support/dependencies.rb:452:in`const\_missing’  
> > from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-1.4.4/lib/  
> > active\_support/dependencies.rb:464:in `const\_missing’  
> > from (irb):1

I am quite perplexed by this. Other than the Ubuntu/Mac OS X  
difference, the same version of ruby, rails, and all gems are  
installed.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Andrew

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/starmaerker)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 6:17am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-namespaced-model-weirdness/117673/2 "2007-10-19T06:17:51Z")

</div>

On 10/18/07, Andrew S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> class X::Y \< ActiveRecord::Base  
> On the dev machine, I can reference the classes in script/console  
> from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-1.4.4/lib/  
> installed.
> 
> Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Andrew
> 
> >

Unless something has changed that I don’t know about, then you’re just  
outta luck. You can’t do namespaced models, has to do with  
classloading. You’ll spend tons of time and just get headaches, and  
in the end find out that it simply doesn’t work. I know because I  
went through that about a year ago 🙂 Sucks, but it is what it is.

Pat

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/starmaerker)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 6:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-namespaced-model-weirdness/117673/3 "2007-10-19T06:40:03Z")

</div>

What’s weird is that on my development machine, everything runs just  
peachy. I even tested it on another developer’s Windows machine and it  
worked fine there too.

I’d understand if it was broken everywhere, but if Rails is 100% Ruby,  
and both machines are running the same version of Ruby, I don’t see  
why one would work and the other wouldn’t.

Andrew

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/starmaerker)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 10:13am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-namespaced-model-weirdness/117673/4 "2007-10-19T10:13:31Z")

</div>

Andrew - think of that error as meaning something like “syntax error  
in file X, or in something that file X referenced.” It doesn’t tell  
you anything about the error itself.

Try the old-fashioned approach: delete almost everything from the  
files in question until you get to the point where you’re not seeing  
that error. Start with just a couple lines - take it down to almost  
literally what you posted:

class X::Y \< ActiveRecord::Base  
end

Does that work? “Work” here in the sense of “did you get a different  
sort of error.” Great - now add in half of the real contents. Repeat  
as necessary.

Keep an eye out for circular dependencies. It’s been a while since  
I’ve hit that error, but I think most of the time the bug (or design  
flaw) was caused by file A referred to something in B that wanted  
something in A, and I had tried to play games with manual requires  
that didn’t play well with the Rails loader.

Pat - are you sure your thought that namespaced models don’t work is  
current? A year is an awfully long time. My namespaced models don’t  
seem to be giving me any grief these days. The only thing I can think  
of is that STI can get a little weird. (You sure you’re not thinking  
of namespaced controllers? I’ve never had a reason to try that…)

–

James M. | removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
Ruby and Ruby on Rails consulting  
[blog.restphone.com](http://blog.restphone.com)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/starmaerker)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 10:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-namespaced-model-weirdness/117673/5 "2007-10-19T10:15:52Z")

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On 10/19/07, James M. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> Pat - are you sure your thought that namespaced models don’t work is  
> current? A year is an awfully long time. My namespaced models don’t  
> seem to be giving me any grief these days. The only thing I can think  
> of is that STI can get a little weird. (You sure you’re not thinking  
> of namespaced controllers? I’ve never had a reason to try that…)

You’re right, it is a long time. If it works now, awesome, I’ll butt  
out now 🙂

Also funny you mention that it might be controllers…at the time,  
namespaced controllers worked fine and models didn’t.

Pat

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/starmaerker)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 9:38am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-namespaced-model-weirdness/117673/6 "2007-10-19T09:38:22Z")

</div>

Couldn’t tell ya what the difference is. However, I will say there’s  
a difference between dev and production environments. Rails caches  
the classloading stuff in production, and reloads it all in dev. I  
spent a lot of time getting the namespaced model stuff to work in dev  
and testing, and it was fine, but then when I used it in production it  
blew up.

So yeah, you’re right, the discrepancy is weird. But seriously, you  
should only investigate more if you’re interested in why it might be  
different. Even once you figure that out, your code won’t work in  
production.

Pat

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/starmaerker)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 4:47pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-namespaced-model-weirdness/117673/7 "2007-10-19T16:47:23Z")

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On 10/19/07, Andrew S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> It turns out that File.directory? is not case sensitive on Mac OS X  
> (weird I know for a UN\*X based OS), while File.directory? is case  
> sensitive on Ubuntu. My folder inside app/models was capitalized, and  
> the system looks for the lower case version. Mac OS X would find the  
> directory, while Ubuntu didn’t. Hence auto loading the module failed  
> so it never looked for the class in that directory.

That’s not really all that weird. The default file system on OS X isn’t  
case  
sensitive, so it makes sense that File.directory? should base its  
response  
on whether the OS/filesystem currently in use will find the directory.

You can always use a different filesystem on your mac that is case  
sensitive  
but most of the time it’s just a potential issue that you need to keep  
in  
mind.

James.

–  
James S. - Web D.  
Work : [http://jystewart.net](http://jystewart.net)  
Play : [http://james.anthropiccollective.org](http://james.anthropiccollective.org)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@starmaerker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/starmaerker)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 4:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-namespaced-model-weirdness/117673/8 "2007-10-19T16:43:17Z")

</div>

OK,

After a very long night debugging, which involved freezing the rails  
gems on my dev machine and production machine, inserting lots of print  
statements into dependencies.rb in the ActiveSupport gem, copying the  
file back and forth, and firing up script/console, and looking at  
differences, etc I have finally found the solution.

It turns out that File.directory? is not case sensitive on Mac OS X  
(weird I know for a UN\*X based OS), while File.directory? is case  
sensitive on Ubuntu. My folder inside app/models was capitalized, and  
the system looks for the lower case version. Mac OS X would find the  
directory, while Ubuntu didn’t. Hence auto loading the module failed  
so it never looked for the class in that directory.

Renamed the directory and everything works like a dream,

Sigh.

Andrew