Changing type of ActiveRecord Class in Rails with Single Table Inheritance
I have two types of classes:
BaseUser < ActiveRecord::Base
and
User < BaseUser
which acts_as_authentic using Authlogic's authentication system. This inheritance is implemented using Single Table Inheritance
If a new user registers, I register him as a User. However, if I already have a BaseUser with the same email, I'd like to change that BaseUser to a User in the database without simply copying all the data over to the User from the BaseUser and creating a new User (i.e. with a new id). Is this possible? Thanks.
Answer
Steve's answer works but since the instance is of class BaseUser when save is called, validations and callbacks defined in User will not run. You'll probably want to convert the instance using the becomes method:
user = BaseUser.where(email: "[email protected]").first_or_initialize
user = user.becomes(User) # convert to instance from BaseUser to User
user.type = "User"
user.save!