Compares two relations for equality.

Returns true if there are any records.

Returns true if relation is blank.

Returns a cache key that can be used to identify the records fetched by this query. The cache key is built with a fingerprint of the sql query, the number of records matched by the query and a timestamp of the last updated record. When a new record comes to match the query, or any of the existing records is updated or deleted, the cache key changes.

Product.where("name like ?", "%Cosmic Encounter%").cache_key
# => "products/query-1850ab3d302391b85b8693e941286659-1-20150714212553907087000"

If the collection is loaded, the method will iterate through the records to generate the timestamp, otherwise it will trigger one SQL query like:

SELECT COUNT(*), MAX("products"."updated_at") FROM "products" WHERE (name like '%Cosmic Encounter%')

You can also pass a custom timestamp column to fetch the timestamp of the last updated record.

Product.where("name like ?", "%Game%").cache_key(:last_reviewed_at)

You can customize the strategy to generate the key on a per model basis overriding ActiveRecord::Base#collection_cache_key.

Tries to create a new record with the same scoped attributes defined in the relation. Returns the initialized object if validation fails.

Expects arguments in the same format as ActiveRecord::Base.create.

Examples

users = User.where(name: 'Oscar')
users.create # => #<User id: 3, name: "Oscar", ...>

users.create(name: 'fxn')
users.create # => #<User id: 4, name: "fxn", ...>

users.create { |user| user.name = 'tenderlove' }
# => #<User id: 5, name: "tenderlove", ...>

users.create(name: nil) # validation on name
# => #<User id: nil, name: nil, ...>

Similar to create, but calls create! on the base class. Raises an exception if a validation error occurs.

Expects arguments in the same format as ActiveRecord::Base.create!.

Deletes the row with a primary key matching the id argument, using a SQL DELETE statement, and returns the number of rows deleted. Active Record objects are not instantiated, so the object's callbacks are not executed, including any :dependent association options.

You can delete multiple rows at once by passing an Array of ids.

Note: Although it is often much faster than the alternative, destroy, skipping callbacks might bypass business logic in your application that ensures referential integrity or performs other essential jobs.

Examples

# Delete a single row
Todo.delete(1)

# Delete multiple rows
Todo.delete([2,3,4])

Deletes the records without instantiating the records first, and hence not calling the #destroy method nor invoking callbacks. This is a single SQL DELETE statement that goes straight to the database, much more efficient than destroy_all. Be careful with relations though, in particular :dependent rules defined on associations are not honored. Returns the number of rows affected.

Post.where(person_id: 5).where(category: ['Something', 'Else']).delete_all

Both calls delete the affected posts all at once with a single DELETE statement. If you need to destroy dependent associations or call your before_* or after_destroy callbacks, use the destroy_all method instead.

If an invalid method is supplied, delete_all raises an ActiveRecordError:

Post.limit(100).delete_all
# => ActiveRecord::ActiveRecordError: delete_all doesn't support limit

Destroy an object (or multiple objects) that has the given id. The object is instantiated first, therefore all callbacks and filters are fired off before the object is deleted. This method is less efficient than delete but allows cleanup methods and other actions to be run.

This essentially finds the object (or multiple objects) with the given id, creates a new object from the attributes, and then calls destroy on it.

Parameters

• id - Can be either an Integer or an Array of Integers.

Examples

# Destroy a single object
Todo.destroy(1)

# Destroy multiple objects
todos = [1,2,3]
Todo.destroy(todos)

Destroys the records by instantiating each record and calling its #destroy method. Each object's callbacks are executed (including :dependent association options). Returns the collection of objects that were destroyed; each will be frozen, to reflect that no changes should be made (since they can't be persisted).

Note: Instantiation, callback execution, and deletion of each record can be time consuming when you're removing many records at once. It generates at least one SQL DELETE query per record (or possibly more, to enforce your callbacks). If you want to delete many rows quickly, without concern for their associations or callbacks, use delete_all instead.

Examples

Person.where(age: 0..18).destroy_all

Returns true if relation needs eager loading.

Returns true if there are no records.

Serializes the relation objects Array.

Runs EXPLAIN on the query or queries triggered by this relation and returns the result as a string. The string is formatted imitating the ones printed by the database shell.

Note that this method actually runs the queries, since the results of some are needed by the next ones when eager loading is going on.

Please see further details in the Active Record Query Interface guide.

Finds the first record with the given attributes, or creates a record with the attributes if one is not found:

# Find the first user named "Penélope" or create a new one.
User.find_or_create_by(first_name: 'Penélope')
# => #<User id: 1, first_name: "Penélope", last_name: nil>

# Find the first user named "Penélope" or create a new one.
# We already have one so the existing record will be returned.
User.find_or_create_by(first_name: 'Penélope')
# => #<User id: 1, first_name: "Penélope", last_name: nil>

# Find the first user named "Scarlett" or create a new one with
# a particular last name.
User.create_with(last_name: 'Johansson').find_or_create_by(first_name: 'Scarlett')
# => #<User id: 2, first_name: "Scarlett", last_name: "Johansson">

This method accepts a block, which is passed down to create. The last example above can be alternatively written this way:

# Find the first user named "Scarlett" or create a new one with a
# different last name.
User.find_or_create_by(first_name: 'Scarlett') do |user|
  user.last_name = 'Johansson'
end
# => #<User id: 2, first_name: "Scarlett", last_name: "Johansson">

This method always returns a record, but if creation was attempted and failed due to validation errors it won't be persisted, you get what create returns in such situation.

Please note *this method is not atomic*, it runs first a SELECT, and if there are no results an INSERT is attempted. If there are other threads or processes there is a race condition between both calls and it could be the case that you end up with two similar records.

Whether that is a problem or not depends on the logic of the application, but in the particular case in which rows have a UNIQUE constraint an exception may be raised, just retry:

begin
  CreditAccount.transaction(requires_new: true) do
    CreditAccount.find_or_create_by(user_id: user.id)
  end
rescue ActiveRecord::RecordNotUnique
  retry
end

Like find_or_create_by, but calls create! so an exception is raised if the created record is invalid.

Like find_or_create_by, but calls new instead of create.

Joins that are also marked for preloading. In which case we should just eager load them. Note that this is a naive implementation because we could have strings and symbols which represent the same association, but that aren't matched by this. Also, we could have nested hashes which partially match, e.g. { a: :b } & { a: [:b, :c] }

Causes the records to be loaded from the database if they have not been loaded already. You can use this if for some reason you need to explicitly load some records before actually using them. The return value is the relation itself, not the records.

Post.where(published: true).load # => #<ActiveRecord::Relation>

Returns true if there is more than one record.

Initializes new record from relation while maintaining the current scope.

Expects arguments in the same format as ActiveRecord::Base.new.

users = User.where(name: 'DHH')
user = users.new # => #<User id: nil, name: "DHH", created_at: nil, updated_at: nil>

You can also pass a block to new with the new record as argument:

user = users.new { |user| user.name = 'Oscar' }
user.name # => Oscar

Returns true if there are no records.

Returns true if there is exactly one record.

Forces reloading of relation.

Scope all queries to the current scope.

Comment.where(post_id: 1).scoping do
  Comment.first
end
# => SELECT "comments".* FROM "comments" WHERE "comments"."post_id" = 1 ORDER BY "comments"."id" ASC LIMIT 1

Please check unscoped if you want to remove all previous scopes (including the default_scope) during the execution of a block.

Returns size of the records.

Converts relation objects to Array.

Returns sql statement for the relation.

User.where(name: 'Oscar').to_sql
# => SELECT "users".* FROM "users"  WHERE "users"."name" = 'Oscar'

Updates an object (or multiple objects) and saves it to the database, if validations pass. The resulting object is returned whether the object was saved successfully to the database or not.

Parameters

• id - This should be the id or an array of ids to be updated.

• attributes - This should be a hash of attributes or an array of hashes.

Examples

# Updates one record
Person.update(15, user_name: 'Samuel', group: 'expert')

# Updates multiple records
people = { 1 => { "first_name" => "David" }, 2 => { "first_name" => "Jeremy" } }
Person.update(people.keys, people.values)

# Updates multiple records from the result of a relation
people = Person.where(group: 'expert')
people.update(group: 'masters')

Note: Updating a large number of records will run an UPDATE query for each record, which may cause a performance issue. So if it is not needed to run callbacks for each update, it is preferred to use update_all for updating all records using a single query.

Updates all records in the current relation with details given. This method constructs a single SQL UPDATE statement and sends it straight to the database. It does not instantiate the involved models and it does not trigger Active Record callbacks or validations. However, values passed to update_all will still go through Active Record's normal type casting and serialization.

Parameters

• updates - A string, array, or hash representing the SET part of an SQL statement.

Examples

# Update all customers with the given attributes
Customer.update_all wants_email: true

# Update all books with 'Rails' in their title
Book.where('title LIKE ?', '%Rails%').update_all(author: 'David')

# Update all books that match conditions, but limit it to 5 ordered by date
Book.where('title LIKE ?', '%Rails%').order(:created_at).limit(5).update_all(author: 'David')

# Update all invoices and set the number column to its id value.
Invoice.update_all('number = id')

Returns a hash of where conditions.

User.where(name: 'Oscar').where_values_hash
# => {name: "Oscar"}