Adding records to a has_many collection does not work on initialization

I've had a quick poke around with this and I can't seem to get a failing test either. However, I was able to replicate the problem in a Rails app using the exact models and code described by zargony.

I can only get this to happen inside script/console.

Again, using the models described by Andreas, I ran the following using script/runner:

u = User.new(:username => 'foo', :email => 'foo@bar.baz')
u.email_addresses
u.save!
puts u.email_addresses.first.address

and got

foo@bar.baz.

Interestingly, the test also passes for me. But the bug still occurs when using the console of a project where I disabled the described workaround.

Though I don't see why, there must be something wrong with the test. I'll do some more tests later today.

Joshua: yes, I'm trying with rails edge pulled from git.

The problem occurs, if you create an object of a model which builds associated objects during initialization. If you access these associated objects before saving the object itself, all associated objects are lost.

I guess, that this problem might be related to the lazy-loading of an associated collection. If an object builds associated objects in its initializer, the association is still marked as loaded?==false; so on first access to the association proxy, it'll try to load the collection and wipes the ones built in memory.

For some reason, it looks like accessing email_addresses.first is ok, but accessing email_addresses or doing email_addresses.inspect results in an empty array:

>> u=User.new(:username=>'foo', :email=>'foo@bar.baz')
=> #<User id: nil, username: "foo", created_at: nil, updated_at: nil>
>> u.email_addresses.loaded?
=> false
>> u.email_addresses.first
=> #<EmailAddress id: nil, address: "foo@bar.baz", user_id: nil, created_at: nil, updated_at: nil>
>> u.email_addresses.loaded?
=> true
>> u.email_addresses
=> [#<EmailAddress id: nil, address: "foo@bar.baz", user_id: nil, created_at: nil, updated_at: nil>]
>>
?> u=User.new(:username=>'foo', :email=>'foo@bar.baz')
=> #<User id: nil, username: "foo", created_at: nil, updated_at: nil>
>> u.email_addresses.loaded?
=> false
>> u.email_addresses
=> []
>> u.email_addresses.loaded?
=> true

I can reproduce this with script/console and with script/runner, but for some reason not with a test...

I think I finally tracked it down. It's the inspect method of AssociationProxy that does a reload if the target isn't loaded yet and therefore wipes the collection in this case.

The console automatically does #inspect to display an object. That's why it always happened in the console but not in tests.

I attached a patch that fixes this problem and adds a proper test.

Unfortunately, I cannot reopen this ticket myself.