From: Brian Candler <B.Candler@...>
Date: 2007-03-24T05:44:07+09:00
Subject: Re: How to share a collection of model files across many apps?

On Sat, Mar 24, 2007 at 12:24:27AM +0900, Elliott Blatt wrote:
> I've got three files that (a.rb, b.rb, c.rb) that currently live in
> app/models.
> I'd like these models to shared by multiple rails apps. These models are
> associated with a separate database.
> 
> My rails projects are contained in a directory that looks like this:
> 
> projects/
> 
> proj1/ proj2/ proj3/ common/
> 
> 
> common/
>  a.rb b.rb c.rb
> 
> 
> My idea is to do this:
> 
> In proj1/lib/, symlink to ../../common/
> 
> lib/
>   common/   (which is a symlink)
> 
> 
> My question is:
> How do I tell rails to load the files pointed to by the symlink named
> 'common' in the lib directory?

I'm going to have to do something like this soon.

Personally I want to avoid symlinks, and I think what you want should be
possible simply by adding the appropriate directory to config.load_paths,
e.g.

    config.load_paths << "#{RAILS_ROOT}/../common/app/models"

Now, if you enter "site:rubyonrails.com config.load_paths" into Google,
there are two hits, and the second one looks like a Wiki page which explains
exactly this. Unfortunately, when I follow it at the moment all I see is
"Application error (Rails)" :-(

But the 'Cached' link on Google works.

Another idea. If the model is called common/app/models/foo.rb, then you can
create stub files {proj1,proj2,proj3}/app/models/foo.rb which just contain
a single line:

  require "#{RAILS_ROOT}/../common/app/models/foo.rb"

or even something which does a sub() on __FILE__

Regards,

Brian.