Rails: Overriding ActiveRecord association method

Question

Is there a way to override one of the methods provided by an ActiveRecord association?

Say for example I have the following typical polymorphic has_many :through ass

Answer 1

This may not be helpful in your case but could be useful for others looking into this.

Association Callbacks: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Associations/ClassMethods.html

Example from the docs:

class Project
  has_and_belongs_to_many :developers, :after_add => :evaluate_velocity

  def evaluate_velocity(developer)
    ...
  end
end

Also see Association Extensions:

class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :people do
    def find_or_create_by_name(name)
      first_name, last_name = name.split(" ", 2)
      find_or_create_by_first_name_and_last_name(first_name, last_name)
    end
  end
end

person = Account.first.people.find_or_create_by_name("David Heinemeier Hansson")
person.first_name # => "David"
person.last_name  # => "Heinemeier Hansson"