Implementing Abstract Base Model Class, the Rails Way™

Question

I have a Book and Download model that share many attributes, so my goal is to inherit the common attributes from a DownloadableResource model.
Had a look at STI, but I went the abstract base model class way instead:

• models:

  class DownloadableResource < ActiveRecord::Base
    self.abstract_class = true
  
    attr_accessible :title, :url, :description, :active, :position
    validates :title, :url, :description, presence: true
    scope :active, where(active: true).order(:position)
  end
  
  class Book < DownloadableResource
    attr_accessible :cover_url, :authors
    validates :cover_url, :authors, presence: true
  end
  
  class Download < DownloadableResource
    attr_accessible :icon_url
    validates :icon_url, presence: true
  end
  

• migrations:

  class CreateDownloadableResources < ActiveRecord::Migration
    def change
      create_table :downloadable_resources do |t|
        t.string    :title
        t.string    :url
        t.text      :description
        t.boolean   :active,      default: false
        t.integer   :position
        t.timestamps
      end
    end
  end
  
  class CreateBooks < ActiveRecord::Migration
    def change
      create_table :books do |t|
        t.string :cover_url
        t.string :authors
        t.timestamps
      end
    end
  end
  
  class CreateDownloads < ActiveRecord::Migration
    def change
      create_table :downloads do |t|
        t.string :icon_url
        t.timestamps
      end
    end
  end
  

After migration, when I create a new Book the result is far from expected:

> Book.new
=> #<Book id: nil, cover_url: nil, authors: nil, created_at: nil, updated_at: nil> 

Can somebody please shed some light on how to implement the Abstract Base Model Class technique so ActiveRecord models can share common code via inheritance yet be persisted to different database tables?

Answer 1

By declaring a model as abstract you are actually saying that there's no underlying table and you want to allow subclassing. That means:

• You don't need the downloadable_resources table
• Book.table_name prints books instead of downloadable_resources

As @Finbarr already mentioned, this also means that both Book and Download models need to have all of the attributes in their tables.

What is this actually useful for then? In my opinion not for much. You can share validations, scopes etc. but you can achieve all of that more easily by including custom modules.

To solve your problem I would probably go with a different approach. I would create another model called DownloadableContent that would be self contained. It would include validations and the table would have all of the attributes. And finally models Book and Download would have a polymorphic has_one relation to the DownloadableContent model.

You could go with the STI approach but I generally don't like mixing all of the custom attributes together.