Rails ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid: PG::Error: ERROR: missing FROM-clause entry for table

Question

I've a complex ActiveRecord query that I'm building up with different scopes, depending on the user selection. I'm using 2 gems, which seems to be problematic together, but I cannot find who's the culprit between : Texticle (for Postgresql full search) (2.0.3) Squeel (for ruby syntax use in Active Record query) squeel (0.9.5) Arel or Active Record themselves

Here are my classes definitions:

class Event < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :entity, :class_name => "Entity", :foreign_key => :entity_id
  belongs_to :place, :class_name => "Entity", :foreign_key => :place_id

class Entity < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :events, :foreign_key => 'entity_id'
  has_many :events, :foreign_key => 'place_id'

And finally, my query :

Event.joins{entity.outer}.joins{place.outer}.includes(:place).includes(:entity).textsearch('anystring'.downcase)

*This is an ActiveRecord::Relation object, which crash when calling it with to_a

This gives me the following error :

ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid: PG::Error: ERROR:  missing FROM-clause entry for table "entities_events"
LINE 1: ... AS t1_r30, "entities"."metro_area_id" AS t1_r31, "entities_...
                                                             ^
: SELECT "events"."id" AS t0_r0, "events"."name" AS t0_r1, "events"."start_at" AS t0_r2, "events"."end_at" AS t0_r3, "events"."created_at" AS t0_r4, "events"."updated_at" AS t0_r5, "events"."entity_id" AS t0_r6, "events"."calendar_id" AS t0_r7, "events"."location" AS t0_r8, "events"."facebook_id" AS t0_r9, "events"."updated_time" AS t0_r10, "events"."privacy" AS t0_r11, "events"."venue_id" AS t0_r12, "events"."description" AS t0_r13, "events"."venue_city" AS t0_r14, "events"."venue_country" AS t0_r15, "events"."venue_state" AS t0_r16, "events"."venue_longitude" AS t0_r17, "events"."venue_latitude" AS t0_r18, "events"."yahoo_city" AS t0_r19, "events"."yahoo_country" AS t0_r20, "events"."yahoo_state" AS t0_r21, "events"."yahoo_updated_at" AS t0_r22, "events"."fb_updated_at" AS t0_r23, "events"."source_id" AS t0_r24, "events"."source_type" AS t0_r25, "events"."source_url" AS t0_r26, "events"."status" AS t0_r27, "events"."category" AS t0_r28, "events"."place_id" AS t0_r29, "events"."metro_area_id" AS t0_r30, "entities"."id" AS t1_r0, "entities"."image_url" AS t1_r1, "entities"."created_at" AS t1_r2, "entities"."updated_at" AS t1_r3, "entities"."name" AS t1_r4, "entities"."facebook_id" AS t1_r5, "entities"."link" AS t1_r6, "entities"."website" AS t1_r7, "entities"."company_overview" AS t1_r8, "entities"."mission" AS t1_r9, "entities"."category" AS t1_r10, "entities"."picture" AS t1_r11, "entities"."city" AS t1_r12, "entities"."zip" AS t1_r13, "entities"."country" AS t1_r14, "entities"."street" AS t1_r15, "entities"."state" AS t1_r16, "entities"."events_updated_at" AS t1_r17, "entities"."fblikes_updated_at" AS t1_r18, "entities"."fb_updated_at" AS t1_r19, "entities"."source_url" AS t1_r20, "entities"."source_type" AS t1_r21, "entities"."source_id" AS t1_r22, "entities"."place" AS t1_r23, "entities"."latitude" AS t1_r24, "entities"."longitude" AS t1_r25, "entities"."yahoo_city" AS t1_r26, "entities"."yahoo_state" AS t1_r27, "entities"."yahoo_country" AS t1_r28, "entities"."yahoo_updated_at" AS t1_r29, "entities"."fetched_elements_at" AS t1_r30, "entities"."metro_area_id" AS t1_r31, "entities_events"."id" AS t2_r0, "entities_events"."image_url" AS t2_r1, "entities_events"."created_at" AS t2_r2, "entities_events"."updated_at" AS t2_r3, "entities_events"."name" AS t2_r4, "entities_events"."facebook_id" AS t2_r5, "entities_events"."link" AS t2_r6, "entities_events"."website" AS t2_r7, "entities_events"."company_overview" AS t2_r8, "entities_events"."mission" AS t2_r9, "entities_events"."category" AS t2_r10, "entities_events"."picture" AS t2_r11, "entities_events"."city" AS t2_r12, "entities_events"."zip" AS t2_r13, "entities_events"."country" AS t2_r14, "entities_events"."street" AS t2_r15, "entities_events"."state" AS t2_r16, "entities_events"."events_updated_at" AS t2_r17, "entities_events"."fblikes_updated_at" AS t2_r18, "entities_events"."fb_updated_at" AS t2_r19, "entities_events"."source_url" AS t2_r20, "entities_events"."source_type" AS t2_r21, "entities_events"."source_id" AS t2_r22, "entities_events"."place" AS t2_r23, "entities_events"."latitude" AS t2_r24, "entities_events"."longitude" AS t2_r25, "entities_events"."yahoo_city" AS t2_r26, "entities_events"."yahoo_state" AS t2_r27, "entities_events"."yahoo_country" AS t2_r28, "entities_events"."yahoo_updated_at" AS t2_r29, "entities_events"."fetched_elements_at" AS t2_r30, "entities_events"."metro_area_id" AS t2_r31 FROM "events" LEFT OUTER JOIN "entities" ON "entities"."id" = "events"."entity_id" LEFT OUTER JOIN "entities" "places_events" ON "places_events"."id" = "events"."place_id" WHERE (to_tsvector('english', "events"."name"::text) @@ to_tsquery('english', 'canadiens'::text))  ORDER BY "rank0.11630770538778923" DESC
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:1106:in `async_exec'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:1106:in `exec_no_cache'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:650:in `block in exec_query'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:280:in `block in log'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activesupport-3.2.1/lib/active_support/notifications/instrumenter.rb:20:in `instrument'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:275:in `log'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:649:in `exec_query'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:1201:in `select'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/database_statements.rb:16:in `select_all'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/query_cache.rb:63:in `select_all'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/relation/finder_methods.rb:211:in `find_with_associations'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/relation.rb:170:in `exec_queries'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/relation.rb:159:in `block in to_a'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/explain.rb:40:in `logging_query_plan'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/relation.rb:158:in `to_a'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/relation.rb:495:in `inspect'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/railties-3.2.1/lib/rails/commands/console.rb:47:in `start'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/railties-3.2.1/lib/rails/commands/console.rb:8:in `start'
     from /Users/guillaumenm/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/railties-3.2.1/lib/rails/commands.rb:41:in `<top (required)>'
     from ./script/rails:6:in `require'

If I call the to_sql method on the query, I get a working SQL statement like this :
 => "SELECT \"events\".*, ts_rank(to_tsvector('english', \"events\".\"name\"::text), to_tsquery('english', 'canadiens'::text)) AS \"rank0.7148935848557265\" FROM \"events\" LEFT OUTER JOIN \"entities\" ON \"entities\".\"id\" = \"events\".\"entity_id\" WHERE (to_tsvector('english', \"events\".\"name\"::text) @@ to_tsquery('english', 'canadiens'::text)) AND ((\"events\".\"start_at\" >= '2012-02-19T00:00:00+00:00' AND \"events\".\"start_at\" <= '2012-02-25T23:59:59+00:00')) ORDER BY \"rank0.7148935848557265\" DESC"

• Is Active Record and ARel fully responsible to implement the full sql statement?
• Why to_sql doesn't produce the same result?

• Any way to force (without giving the full OUTER JOIN syntax) the join name?

• How can I be sure to capture the problematic piece to fill in the proper bug report? I'm pretty lost in my debugger trying to find what piece of code writes the incorrect join statement || or the incorrect SELECT clause with the invalid join association name.

Thanks

Answer 1

I've just had the same error come up for me, with this line of code:

SampleItem.joins(:campaign_market).where(campaign_market: {market_id: current_admin_user.market_id})

My cause was far simpler than the one above, joins(:campaign_market) was correct as it's a belongs_to / parent record, however:

.where(campaign_market: {market_id: current_admin_user.market_id})

should have been:

.where(campaign_markets: {market_id: current_admin_user.market_id})

The .where() clause always want's the pluralised table name, not the association name.

Answer 2

After much debugging, I found the issue to be multiples :-(.

First, the joins order must match the includes order. Therefore, the 2 lines, doesn't produce the same SQL query. Naming aliases are different. I believe this is an active record \ arel issue that I'll flag.

Event.joins{entity.outer}.joins{place.outer}.includes(:place).includes(:entity)

is different than

Event.joins{entity.outer}.joins{place.outer}.includes(:entity).includes(:place)

However, this problem was transparent, up until I added another scope for my text search. My guess is because the SQL statement changed to add a column alias for every columns. The alias used the table alias as well, which was then different than the one in the FROM and JOIN clauses.

Changing the order, did not fix all my problems however. I ended up finding another issue where the SELECT clause of my texticle full text search gets ripped off from the query going to the DB. Instead, I get this error:

ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid: PG::Error: ERROR:  column "rank0.8601929506100121" does not exist
LINE 1: ...o_tsquery('english', 'canadiens'::text)) ORDER BY "rank0.860...

I also believe this to be either a texticle, squeel or ActiveRecord/Arel bug, not sure which one yet...

So painful I want to write up my own SQL statements by hand again...