I'm working with a database I have no control over, and cannot make alterations to. This database has a table called warehouse_items. Each warehouse item is uniquely identified by a primary key indicating the item id.
Unfortunately, that primary key attribute is named WAREHOUSE_ITEM.ID
(Note the obnoxious period between "item" and "id")
When I try to run a basic query, such as:
WarehouseItem.find('wh3453')
I get an Undefined Table error.
Fortunately, when looking at what Rails is attempting to do, the problem becomes obvious:
: SELECT "warehouse_items".* FROM "warehouse_items" WHERE "WAREHOUSE_ITEM"."ID" = $1 LIMIT $2
Because of the period in the attribute name, Rails is treating "WAREHOUSE_ITEM.ID" as a table/attribute combination, rather than an attribute name with a period in it.
When I run the following PSQL query by hand, I get exactly what I need:
SELECT "warehouse_items".* FROM "warehouse_items" WHERE "warehouse_items"."WAREHOUSE_ITEM.ID" = 'wh3453'
Why is Rails screwing this up, and how can I fix it?
EDIT:
Also worth noting: I've tried using self.primary_key to override the primary key to no avail.
I've tried both a string and a symbol, as in:
self.primary_key="WAREHOUSE_ITEM.ID"
and
self.primary_key=:"WAREHOUSE_ITEM.ID"
Neither one has worked...
Thanks for all the help, everyone!
A suggestion in the comments to use find_by_sql does work! However, I stumbled onto a different solution that works even better.
First, I aliased the annoying attribute name to something simple: id
alias_attribute :id, :"WAREHOUSE_ITEM.ID"
Notice that it's still a symbol, which is important for the next step.
I then overwrite the primary_key method with a custom function:
def self.primary_key
return "id"
end
Now, when I do WarehouseItem.find('wh3453'), Rails defaults to checking id, which is aliased to the correct symbol and it works as intended!!!