Overriding reflected AR attributes

Rails
1

OK, so I get ActiveRecord determines model attributes through
reflection of the table schema. Handy for many cases, but not mine.

I need to override that and provide my own mapping of attribute names
(for use in all app-specific code) to column names.

I’ve been poking around looking for how that might be done like I see
table_name and other attributes can be, but so far I’m coming up empty.

I’ve written/been using my own framework for years in another
language that handled all this (more of a table gateway than an
ActiveRecord pattern), so I can do it, just wondering if Rails has
it, and if not, what’s the best, i.e. Ruby/Rails “right way” to add
it (extend AR modules? write a super class for all my models? write a
utility class for all my models to use, other?)

(For those of you that want to know why, I can elaborate, but I’ll
spare us the bulk until needed.)

– gw

2

you could just write a getter/setter for each custom attr to point
back to the reflected attr:

class MyClass < ActiveRecord::Base
def my_foo
self[:foo]
end

def my_foo=(val)
self[:foo] = val
end
end