Commit 34271138 authored by Nicolò Maria Mezzopera's avatar Nicolò Maria Mezzopera Committed by Marcia Ramos

Add auto-loading gotcha to the docs

- problem
- example of bad code
- solution
- reference
parent dc60dee6
......@@ -168,3 +168,73 @@ in an initializer._
### Further reading
- Stack Overflow: [Why you should not write inline JavaScript](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/86589/why-should-i-avoid-inline-scripting)
## Auto loading
Rails auto-loading on `development` differs from the load policy in the `production` environment.
In development mode, `config.eager_load` is set to `false`, which means classes
are loaded as needed. With the classic Rails autoloader, it is known that this can lead to
[Rails resolving the wrong class](https://guides.rubyonrails.org/v5.2/autoloading_and_reloading_constants.html#when-constants-aren-t-missed-relative-references)
if the class name is ambiguous. This can be fixed by specifying the complete namespace to the class.
### Error prone example
```ruby
# app/controllers/application_controller.rb
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
...
end
# app/controllers/projects/application_controller.rb
class Projects::ApplicationController < ApplicationController
...
private
def project
...
end
end
# app/controllers/projects/submodule/some_controller.rb
module Projects
module Submodule
class SomeController < ApplicationController
def index
@some_id = project.id
end
end
end
end
```
In this case, if for any reason the top level `ApplicationController`
is loaded but `Projects::ApplicationController` is not, `ApplicationController`
would be resolved to `::ApplicationController` and then the `project` method will
be undefined and we will get an error.
#### Solution
```ruby
# app/controllers/projects/submodule/some_controller.rb
module Projects
module Submodule
class SomeController < Projects::ApplicationController
def index
@some_id = project.id
end
end
end
end
```
By specifying `Projects::`, we tell Rails exactly what class we are referring
to and we would avoid the issue.
NOTE: **Note:**
This problem will disappear as soon as we upgrade to Rails 6 and use the Zeitwerk autoloader.
### Further reading
- Rails Guides: [Autoloading and Reloading Constants (Classic Mode)](https://guides.rubyonrails.org/autoloading_and_reloading_constants_classic_mode.html)
- Ruby Constant lookup: [Everything you ever wanted to know about constant lookup in Ruby](http://cirw.in/blog/constant-lookup)
- Rails 6 and Zeitwerk autoloader: [Understanding Zeitwerk in Rails 6](https://medium.com/cedarcode/understanding-zeitwerk-in-rails-6-f168a9f09a1f)
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