How to add a has_many association on all models

Right now I have an initializer that does this:

ActiveRecord::Base.send :has_many, :notes, :as => :notable ActiveRecord::Base.send :accepts_nested_attributes_for, :notes

It builds the association just fine, except when I load a view that uses it, the second load gives me: can't dup NilClass from:

/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/base.rb:2184:in `dup'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/base.rb:2184:in `scoped_methods'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/base.rb:2188:in `current_scope开发者_如何学God_methods'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/base.rb:2171:in `scoped?'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/base.rb:2439:in `send'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/base.rb:2439:in `initialize'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/reflection.rb:162:in `new'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/reflection.rb:162:in `build_association'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/associations/association_collection.rb:423:in `build_record'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/associations/association_collection.rb:102:in `build'
(my app)/controllers/manifests_controller.rb:21:in `show'

Any ideas? Am I doing this the wrong way? Interestingly if I move the association onto just the model I'm working with at the moment, I don't get this error. I figure I must be building the global association incorrectly.

---

You state that you have many models, all of which require this association. If it were me, I'd would go with the approach of creating a base model class that contains the association and then have all the other models inherit from it. Something like:

class NotableModel < ActiveRecord::Base

  # Prevents ActiveRecord from looking for a database table for this class
  self.abstract_class = true

  has_many :notes, :as => :notable
  accepts_nested_attributes_for :notes  
end

class Foo < NotableModel
  ...
end

class Bar < NotableModel
  ...
end

In my opinion this approach is more self-documenting compared to using a little bit of metaprogramming hidden away in an initializer.

---

take a look at unloadable it may help you

---

It's recommended to make each association in each model! It's a useless DRY way to make such things! At all, It's my opinion!

---

Thanks to Rich Kilmer (of InfoEther), we found the elegant (and slightly opaque) way of fixing this:

# config/initializers/has_many_notes.rb
module ActiveRecord
  class Base
    def self.inherited(klass)
      super
      klass.send :has_many, :notes, :as => :notable
      klass.send :accepts_nested_attributes_for, :notes
    end
  end
end

Now no inheritance changes, and it's very DRY