Rails Ruby on Rails → 2.x

Hi,
Here is an issue/improvement/suggestion

When defining a to_s class method for my models it breaks rails, especially in active_record.
active_record uses both class.name and class.to_s to do the same sort of stuffs (like in the join_table_name in associations)

I think class.name is the name of the class and to_s is a string representation. But by default class.name == class.to_s
I think self.to_s should not be used for building such things like table names, instead use name.

The problem occurs when I want to distinguish my simple class and my active_record models (I also use to_s for other cases)
It is a basic code ....

I just create user and project activerecord classes with a habtm associations.

I put at the bottom of config/environment.rb

module ActiveRecord
class Base
def self.to_s
"ActiveRecord::Base model : #{self.name}"
end
end
end

Since I implement this simple code I run into troubles!

I launch script/console to see what is the problem and I see that my User.reflections[:projects].options[:join_table] is not what is expected

User.reflections[:projects].options[:join_table] => "base model : users_projects" It should return "users_projects" !!!!

E.g in version 2.3.2 in activerecord/lib/active_record/associations.rb:1538 If find the code which gives me headhache.

reflection.options[:join_table] ||= join_table_name(undecorated_table_name(self.to_s), undecorated_table_name(reflection.class_name))

The guilty code is ( mine ? :) ) described above. I replace undecorated_table_name(self.to_s) by undecorated_table_name(self.name) and other things like that, runs all the tests well
But I think i missed some.

I know that many libraries use to_s and name for the same things. My question is : "Is it clean?"

I think there are many bugs like this .... And why not only use name, since name and to_s class methods return by default the same results ?

Hery