Common convention to name a File class in ruby

Question

In ruby, it's pretty common to see variable named klass that holds the name of the class name. Since class is a reserved keyword, a misspelled word klass serves the purpose.

I'm looking for a similar solution for class that I need to define for a file object.

Obviously

class File
end

won't work for me because it will start monkey patching the ruby's File class which I don't intend.

Is there a name in practice that is commonly used for File class? I stumbled upon the idea of using Fyle but not sure if this is a great idea and wanted to check with the community :)

EDIT 1 Example of my usage.

In my rails app, I have a Product model which has many files. There are other models that also have file associations.

So I want to declare my associations like this

class Product
  has_many :files, as: :file_attachable
end

class File # I cannot use `File` because it conflicts with ruby's `File`
  belongs_to :file_attachable, polymorphic: true
end

Could you provide some specific examples as to what you are trying to change or achive? — vee
– vee, Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 7:19
I'm not aware of any commonly used convention for this, but perhaps ProductFile would suit your use case? — Henrik N
– Henrik N, Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 13:51
@HenrikN since File is polymorphic, calling it ProductFile is not a right choice :) — shankardevy
– shankardevy, Commented Dec 28, 2014 at 9:43

joelparkerhenderson · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-27 09:28:43Z

2

Use a module namespace. This keeps your File class separate from Ruby's standard File class.

For example:

 module Foo
   class File
   end
 end

Usage:

 f = Foo::File.new

For Rails ActiveRecord, you can do:

 module Foo
   class File < ActiveRecord::Base
   end
 end

Rails will automatically use the table name based on the class that inherits from Base, and not based on the module name:

Foo::File.table_name #=> "files"

You can provide your own table_name if you prefer to customize:

 module Foo
   class File < ActiveRecord::Base
     self.table_name = "foo_files"
   end
 end

Associations work the same way:

module Foo
  class User
    has_many :files  # class is Foo::File
  end
end

You can provide your own class_name if you prefer to customize:

module Foo
  class User
     has_many :files, class_name: "Foo::File"
  end
end

edited Dec 27, 2014 at 9:28

answered Dec 27, 2014 at 7:43

joelparkerhenderson

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2 Comments

shankardevy Over a year ago

namespacing is a good idea. However, now I have to deal with additional overheads in a rails model associations. I mean I no longer can use has_many :fyles but have to mention class name and my table name also should be 'foo_files' etc. Is this the standard way?

joelparkerhenderson Over a year ago

I added more info for you. Rails handles all this for you, and also enables you to customize if you prefer.

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