Nested has_many :through

here is the situation

class Entity < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :parent, :foreign_key => :parent_id, :class_name =>
‘Entity’
end

class Player < Entity
end

class Team < Entity
has_many :players, :foreign_key => :parent_id, :class_name =>
‘Player’
end

class Club < Entity
has_many :teams, :foreign_key => :parent_id, :class_name => ‘Team’
has_many :players, :through => :teams, :foreign_key
=> :parent_id, :class_name => ‘Player’
end

Mysql::Error: Not unique table/alias: ‘entities’: SELECT count(*) AS
count_all FROM entities INNER JOIN entities ON
entities.parent_id = entities.id WHERE ((entities.parent_id =
48) AND (( (entities.entity_type = ‘Team’ ) ))) AND
( entities.entity_type = ‘Player’ )

how do get over this problem?

Do you really need the Entity class? What else does it do for you?
I’d just have: Club has many Teams and Team has many Players.

STI is often not worth the pain it gives.
You could also look into ‘acts as tree’ as a solution.

Hmmm… this is supposed to work - the join table should have its name
aliased. This would be a good thing to add to the Rails Lighthouse -
rails.lighthouseapp.com

–Matt J.