Autoloading behaves weird when class caching is turned off

More detail is available at my blog post with comparing examples: http://owenou.com/2011/01/20/loading-path-gotchas-in-rails3.html

I am investigating this potential bug with a different twist. Glad to find this post and bug report.

My example is having:
app/models/user.rb
app/models/Modu/user.rb

and have autoload_path::
config.autoload_paths += %W(#{config.root}/app/models/Modu)

Where app/models/user.rb is simply:

 class User
   puts "hi User"
 end

and app/Modu/user.rb is simply:

 module Modu
   class User
   puts "hi Modu::User"
   end
 end

Upon "rails c" or "rails server," the following exception will occur:

hi Modu::User
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-3.0.3/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:492:in `load_missing_constant': Expected /Users/apps/xyz/app/models/Modu/user.rb to define User (LoadError)

BTW, the bug I reported above happens regardless of caching.

Hi José,

How about my example? I don't have two classes with the same name. I have a subdirectory named class1 and a file under it named class1.rb. If class1.rb refers to class1reference.rb, if will also raise exception. I have documented it with a blog post: http://owenou.com/2011/01/20/loading-path-gotchas-in-rails3.html. Please take a look. Thanks.

Owen, but you still have app/models/client1 which is a directory. Rails get confused about defining a module with client1 (which it does automatically for directories) or loading the module (which would define a class). Again, the origin of the issue is the same, having a subpath inside another in autoload_paths. This causes ambiguity and any way Rails try to solve it will likely clause conflicts.

Thanks for the clarification, José. So what's the best practice to manage subdirectories in Rails 3? I have too many models and I would like to manage them in different directories. Should I still organize them by having a base file "require" all the files in the subdirectories?

Sounds like Rails 3 could improve the loading logic: remember the path to the class, then when asked and if there are classes with the same name, check to see whether the references have the path, if not, complain. Bailing out during "rails c" or "rails server" when an autoload path contains the same class name as another in the default app/models path renders Rails 3 brittle.... BTW, Jose, I don't know what changed, but the example I quoted doesn't have a problem in Rails 2 (e.g. 2.3.5). So I don't know why you wouldn't think this is something worth looking into in Rails 3. Thanks for the explanation!

Hi José, can you provide recommendations on how to manage subdirectories in Rails 3. Thanks!