#4270 Arel 0.3.2 broke non-standard column types - Ruby on Rails

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#4270 ✓resolved

Arel 0.3.2 broke non-standard column types

Reported by Tuxie | March 25th, 2010 @ 10:15 PM | in 3.0.2

I have smallint and UUID columns in my PostgreSQL database.
After ActiveRecord bumped the Arel dependency today, all of my unit test started to fail like this:

<ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid> exception expected but was
Class: < NotImplementedError >
Message: <"Column type `` is not currently handled">
---Backtrace---
/Users/perw/.bundle/ruby/1.8/bundler/gems/arel-8151ac946644aab31601d7c0ed944eb9d7ea1e6b-master/lib/arel/engines/sql/attributes.rb:18:in `for'
/Users/perw/.bundle/ruby/1.8/bundler/gems/arel-8151ac946644aab31601d7c0ed944eb9d7ea1e6b-master/lib/arel/engines/sql/relations/table.rb:46:in `attributes'
/Users/perw/.bundle/ruby/1.8/bundler/gems/arel-8151ac946644aab31601d7c0ed944eb9d7ea1e6b-master/lib/arel/engines/sql/relations/table.rb:45:in `collect'
/Users/perw/.bundle/ruby/1.8/bundler/gems/arel-8151ac946644aab31601d7c0ed944eb9d7ea1e6b-master/lib/arel/engines/sql/relations/table.rb:45:in `attributes'
/Users/perw/.bundle/ruby/1.8/bundler/gems/arel-8151ac946644aab31601d7c0ed944eb9d7ea1e6b-master/lib/arel/algebra/relations/relation.rb:100:in `find_attribute_matching_name'

I guess the problem is here:
http://github.com/rails/arel/commit/83c27c0b5e2e341307b7a160d831fb9...

Maybe it should default to cast to String instead of raising an exeption?

Comments and changes to this ticket

José Valim March 27th, 2010 @ 12:09 PM
- Assigned user set to “Emilio Tagua”
- Milestone cleared.
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Ernie Miller March 31st, 2010 @ 08:54 PM
- Tag changed from “arel” to “arel, patch, postgresql”
The types that Arel handles are the only ones that should ever show up based on a call to Column#type or a subclass because of the simplified_types call in ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::Column.initialize.

Based on the simplified_types method in active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb it looks like the problem is that no mapping exists for those column types. This seems to be a problem with the PostgreSQL adapter, not Arel. Can you try the attached patch and see if the problem goes away? I don't run PostgreSQL here, so I haven't tested it, but I think it should do the trick.
Emilio Tagua March 31st, 2010 @ 09:35 PM
- State changed from “new” to “incomplete”
Ernie, the patch looks good can you add tests?
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Ernie Miller March 31st, 2010 @ 10:07 PM
- Tag changed from “arel, patch, postgresql” to “arel, patch, postgresql, tests”
Sure. Here you go.
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Ernie Miller March 31st, 2010 @ 10:09 PM
Adding the file. Was showing the old one for me. Probably just caching on my end but want to be sure.
- postgresql_adapter_fixes.diff 2.3 KB
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Ernie Miller March 31st, 2010 @ 10:10 PM
Adding the file. Was showing the old one for me. Probably just caching on my end but want to be sure.
- postgresql_adapter_fixes.diff 2.3 KB
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Ernie Miller March 31st, 2010 @ 10:10 PM
Adding the file. Was showing the old one for me. Probably just caching on my end but want to be sure.
- postgresql_adapter_fixes.diff 2.3 KB
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Ernie Miller March 31st, 2010 @ 10:11 PM
- no changes were found...
- postgresql_adapter_fixes_with_tests.diff 3.8 KB
Repository March 31st, 2010 @ 11:16 PM
- State changed from “incomplete” to “resolved”
(from [98bf00d50d81c522f747131da7071d02815652f3]) Add tests for postgresql column type mapping updates [#4270 state:resolved]

Signed-off-by: Emilio Tagua miloops@gmail.com
http://github.com/rails/rails/commit/98bf00d50d81c522f747131da7071d...
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garrett April 21st, 2010 @ 02:46 AM
I'm getting this error now also. Trying to save PostGIS geometry types back to the database. String would be the correct way to handle these columns as they get shuffled in and out normally as Hex.

NotImplementedError: Column type is not currently handled<br/>
```
from /Users/garrett/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-head/gems/arel-0.3.3/lib/arel/engines/sql/attributes.rb:18:in `for'
from /Users/garrett/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-head/gems/arel-0.3.3/lib/arel/engines/sql/relations/table.rb:46:in `block in attributes'
```
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garrett April 21st, 2010 @ 03:06 AM
here's a patch that should work
- geometry.diff 1.6 KB
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gucki May 15th, 2010 @ 05:20 PM
The problems still occurs when using custom data types, which is quite common when using pgsql.

Either there should be a way to easily add custom datatypes with their mapping or the adapter should fallback to :string for unknown types.

jdguyot June 23rd, 2010 @ 09:54 PM

Same problem here. I'm currently migrating our app from Rails 2.3.5 to 3.0b4. We use custom pgsql types which is a really common thing.

class CreateModel < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    # Create a custom column type
    execute %{ CREATE TYPE custom_column_type AS ENUM ('item1', 'item2'); }
    
    create_table :models do |t|
      t.column    :custom_column, :custom_column_type
      t.timestamps
    end
  end

  def self.down
    drop_table :models
    execute %{ DROP TYPE custom_column_type; }
  end
end

I see the same stack than above:

NotImplementedError: Column type `` is not currently handled
    vendor/gems/arel-0.4.0/lib/arel/engines/sql/attributes.rb:18:in `for'
    vendor/gems/arel-0.4.0/lib/arel/engines/sql/relations/table.rb:47:in `attributes'
    vendor/gems/arel-0.4.0/lib/arel/engines/sql/relations/table.rb:46:in `collect'
    vendor/gems/arel-0.4.0/lib/arel/engines/sql/relations/table.rb:46:in `attributes'
    vendor/gems/arel-0.4.0/lib/arel/algebra/relations/relation.rb:87:in `[]'
    vendor/gems/activerecord-3.0.0.beta4/lib/active_record/base.rb:1776:in `arel_attributes_values'
    ...

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Mordekai July 15th, 2010 @ 06:23 PM
- Importance changed from “” to “High”
I've got the same problem with Postgres's tsvector type, which is now a standard data type. This issue seems to be as marked resolved prematurely: Some way to add new data types without patching postgresql_adapter.rb is needed, perhaps using a hash added to /config/initializers/postgres_init.rb.
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Steve Madsen August 10th, 2010 @ 04:04 AM
- State changed from “resolved” to “incomplete”
Adding to the chorus, I see the same behavior with a column of type "earth", from the earthdistance contrib module. I don't actually care about updating this column from within the Rails app, but I do need access to the other columns in the table. [state:incomplete]
Jeremy Kemper August 30th, 2010 @ 04:10 AM
- Milestone cleared.
[bulk edit]
Emilio Tagua September 21st, 2010 @ 08:19 PM
- State changed from “incomplete” to “resolved”
Hey,

I think this was solved here:

https://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/5477

Commit here:

http://github.com/rails/arel/commit/33445ba4c7729970ff8840634c92009...

I'm closing the ticket, feel free to reopen it you find it's still not working.
Jeremy Kemper October 15th, 2010 @ 11:01 PM
- Milestone set to “3.0.2”
[bulk edit]