I am using a scope to get an Item for a specific user:
In Item model
belongs_to :user
scope :for_user, lambda { |user| where(:user_id => user) }
User model
has_many :items
Problem
When calling Item.includes(:user).for_user(3) an Array is returned instead of an ActiveRecord relation.
I'd expect it to behave like Item.includes(:user).find_by_user_id(3), which returns a ActiveRecord relation.
Thanks for your help.
if you do some more investigation you'll find ou that it does indeed return a relation object.
But it will when necessary convert it into an array.
Namely, if you're in a console and say > Item.includes(:user).for_user(3) it will try to inspect it, and consequently do the conversion.
But by all means the following will work
scope = Item.includes(:user).for_user(3)
# does a db count
scope.count
# does a db select limit 1
scope.first
# does a full db select
scope.all
Using where(:user_id => user) instead of dynamic method like find_by_user_id would always return an array. If you're only interested in the first record returned from your scope you can change your scope to be something like
scope :for_user, lambda { |user| where(:user_id => user).first }
