Given the following class definitions,
class Address belongs_to :addressable, :polymorphic => true end class Person has_many :addresses, :as => addressable end class Vendor < Person end
and given the following code,
vendor = Vendor.create(...) address = vendor.addresses.create(...) p vendor p address
will output,
#<Vendor id: 1, type: "Vendor" ...> #<Address id: 1, addressable_id: 1, addressable_type: 'Person' ...>
Notice that addressable_type column is Person even though the actual class is Vendor.
Normally, this isn’t a problem, however it can have negative performance characteristic in certain circumstances. The most obvious one is that a join with persons or an extra query is required to find out the actual type of addressable.
This gem add ActiveRecord::Base.store_base_sti_class configuration option. It defaults to true for backwards compatibility. Setting it false will alter ActiveRecord’s behavior to store the actual class in polymorphic _type columns when STI is used.
In the example above, if the ActiveRecord::Base.store_base_sti_class is false, the output will be,
#<Vendor id: 1, type: "Vendor" ...> #<Address id: 1, addressable_id: 1, addressable_type: 'Vendor' ...>
Add the following line to your Gemfile,
gem 'store_base_sti_class'
then bundle install. Once you have the gem installed, add the following to one of the initializers (or make a new one) in config/initializers,
ActiveRecord::Base.store_base_sti_class = false
When changing this behavior you will have write a migration to update all of your existing _type columns accordingly. You may also need to change your application if it explicitly relies on the _type columns.
This gem incorporates work from:
It currently works with ActiveRecord 3.0.5 through 4.0.1.
Copyright © 2011 AppFolio, inc. See LICENSE.txt for further details.