Rails STI: Forbidding parent class initialization

Question

I have a rails model Book, with STI-inherited models Fiction and NonFiction

While book holds a lot of common logic, I'd like to forbid creation of the parent Book model. Just wondering about the most elegant method for doing that in Rails - any suggestions appreciated

It sounds like `Book` doesn't need to be a class at all a module instead. — Chuck Callebs, May 21 '13 at 19:23

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered May 21 '13 at 19:35

3

You can set it abstract:

class Book < ActiveRecord::Base
  self.abstract_class = true
  ...
end

answered May 21 '13 at 19:35

BvuRVKyUVlViVIc7

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score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 21 '13 at 19:26

2

You could raise error in Book's initializer

class Book
  def initialize *args
    raise "Can't create a Book" if self.class == Book
    super # if it's not the Book, proceed with ActiveRecord initialization
  end
end

answered May 21 '13 at 19:26

Sergio Tulentsev

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Rails STI: Forbidding parent class initialization

2 Answers2