How to disable default_scope for a belongs_to?

Question

Is there a way to disable the default_scope for a single belongs_to association? The default_scope is fine for all but a single belongs_to that I would like to bypass the scope. I'm familiar with with_exclusive_scope however I don't think that can be used with belongs_to.

Any suggestions?

Context: I'm trying to allow the branch_source association in acts_as_revisable to point to a revision that is not the latest (revisable_is_current is false).

Answer 1

Probably a bit late to the party (just short of 3 years), but just run into the same problem and the solution from Tobias is certainly the right direction, but it can be simplified for Rails 3.2+. The only thing I still don't like is the "hard coded" class name for Document, maybe it's possible to inflect using reflection...

Anyhow this is what I've come up with:

class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
  # Document has some kind of default_scope
  belongs_to :document

  # Ensure document is not scoped, because Rails 3.2 uses modules it's
  # possible to use simple inheritance.
  def document
    Document.unscoped { super }
  end
end

Update: got a generic solution, based on reflect_on_association https://gist.github.com/2923336

Answer 2

belongs_to :account, -> { unscope(where: :destroyed_at) }

works for me, Rails 4.1