Tableless model in rails 3.1

Question

Looks like this method doesn't work anymore in rails 3.1. So, does someone have a working solution?

Actually, I've found this gist. It solves problems with columns_hash and column_defaults errors from the railscast's solution but I get ActiveRecord::ConnectionNotEstablished error all the time when I try to write some attribute.

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

The simplest tableless model in Rails 3.1 is:

class Session
  include ActiveModel::Validations
  include ActiveModel::Conversion
  extend ActiveModel::Naming

  attr_accessor :email, :password
  validates :email, :presence => true
  validates :password, :presence => true

  def initialize(attributes = {})
    if attributes
      attributes.each do |name, value|
        send("#{name}=", value)
      end
    end
  end

  def persisted?
    false
  end
end

The ActiveModel::Validations is optional (only if validations are used). Also the constructor is not required (but highly desireable).

Answer 2

For Rails / ActiveRecord 5.0 you need to redefine private def self.load_schema! to avoid checking the table_name. Also, notice a little hack for the column method (Type).

Here's the complete listing for Tableless model for Rails 5.0 / ActiveRecord 5.0

class Tableless < ActiveRecord::Base

  def self.columns
    @columns ||= []
  end

  def self.column(name, sql_type = nil, default = nil, null = true)
    type = "ActiveRecord::Type::#{sql_type.to_s.camelize}".constantize.new
    columns << ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::Column.new(name.to_s, default, type, null, '')
  end

  def self.columns_hash
    @columns_hash ||= Hash[columns.map { |column| [column.name, column] }]
  end

  def self.column_names
    @column_names ||= columns.map { |column| column.name }
  end

  def self.column_defaults
    @column_defaults ||= columns.map { |column| [column.name, nil] }.inject({}) { |m, e| m[e[0]] = e[1]; m }
  end

  # Override the save method to prevent exceptions.
  def save(validate = true)
    validate ? valid? : true
  end

  private

  def self.load_schema!
    columns_hash.each do |name, column|
      self.define_attribute(
        name,
        column.sql_type_metadata,
        default: column.default,
        user_provided_default: false
      )
    end
  end

end