LEFT OUTER JOIN in Rails 4

Question

I have 3 models:

class Student < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :student_enrollments, dependent: :destroy
  has_many :courses, through: :student_enrollment         


        

Answer 1

You can pass a string that is the join-sql too. eg joins("LEFT JOIN StudentEnrollment se ON c.id = se.course_id")

Though I'd use rails-standard table naming for clarity:

joins("LEFT JOIN student_enrollments ON courses.id = student_enrollments.course_id")

Answer 2

It'a join query in Active Model in Rails.

Please click here for More info about Active Model Query Format.

@course= Course.joins("LEFT OUTER JOIN StudentEnrollment 
     ON StudentEnrollment .id = Courses.user_id").
     where("StudentEnrollment .id IS NULL AND StudentEnrollment .student_id = 
    <SOME_STUDENT_ID_VALUE> and Courses.active = true").select

Answer 3

There is actually a "Rails Way" to do this.

You could use Arel, which is what Rails uses to construct queries for ActiveRecrods

I would wrap it in method so that you can call it nicely and pass in whatever argument you would like, something like:

class Course < ActiveRecord::Base
  ....
  def left_join_student_enrollments(some_user)
    courses = Course.arel_table
    student_entrollments = StudentEnrollment.arel_table

    enrollments = courses.join(student_enrollments, Arel::Nodes::OuterJoin).
                  on(courses[:id].eq(student_enrollments[:course_id])).
                  join_sources

    joins(enrollments).where(
      student_enrollments: {student_id: some_user.id, id: nil},
      active: true
    )
  end
  ....
end

There is also the quick (and slightly dirty) way that many use

Course.eager_load(:students).where(
    student_enrollments: {student_id: some_user.id, id: nil}, 
    active: true
)

eager_load works great, it just has the "side effect" of loding models in memory that you might not need (like in your case)
Please see Rails ActiveRecord::QueryMethods .eager_load
It does exactly what you are asking in a neat way.

Answer 4

If anyone came here looking for a generic way to do a left outer join in Rails 5, you can use the #left_outer_joins function.

Multi-join example:

Ruby:

Source.
 select('sources.id', 'count(metrics.id)').
 left_outer_joins(:metrics).
 joins(:port).
 where('ports.auto_delete = ?', true).
 group('sources.id').
 having('count(metrics.id) = 0').
 all

SQL:

SELECT sources.id, count(metrics.id)
  FROM "sources"
  INNER JOIN "ports" ON "ports"."id" = "sources"."port_id"
  LEFT OUTER JOIN "metrics" ON "metrics"."source_id" = "sources"."id"
  WHERE (ports.auto_delete = 't')
  GROUP BY sources.id
  HAVING (count(metrics.id) = 0)
  ORDER BY "sources"."id" ASC

Answer 5

See below my original post to this question.

Since then, I have implemented my own .left_joins() for ActiveRecord v4.0.x (sorry, my app is frozen at this version so I've had no need to port it to other versions):

In file app/models/concerns/active_record_extensions.rb, put the following:

module ActiveRecordBaseExtensions
    extend ActiveSupport::Concern

    def left_joins(*args)
        self.class.left_joins(args)
    end

    module ClassMethods
        def left_joins(*args)
            all.left_joins(args)
        end
    end
end

module ActiveRecordRelationExtensions
    extend ActiveSupport::Concern

    # a #left_joins implementation for Rails 4.0 (WARNING: this uses Rails 4.0 internals
    # and so probably only works for Rails 4.0; it'll probably need to be modified if
    # upgrading to a new Rails version, and will be obsolete in Rails 5 since it has its
    # own #left_joins implementation)
    def left_joins(*args)
        eager_load(args).construct_relation_for_association_calculations
    end
end

ActiveRecord::Base.send(:include, ActiveRecordBaseExtensions)
ActiveRecord::Relation.send(:include, ActiveRecordRelationExtensions)

Now I can use .left_joins() everywhere I'd normally use .joins().

----------------- ORIGINAL POST BELOW -----------------

If you want OUTER JOINs without all the extra eagerly loaded ActiveRecord objects, use .pluck(:id) after .eager_load() to abort the eager load while preserving the OUTER JOIN. Using .pluck(:id) thwarts eager loading because the column name aliases (items.location AS t1_r9, for example) disappear from the generated query when used (these independently named fields are used to instantiate all the eagerly loaded ActiveRecord objects).

A disadvantage of this approach is that you then need to run a second query to pull in the desired ActiveRecord objects identified in the first query:

# first query
idents = Course
    .eager_load(:students)  # eager load for OUTER JOIN
    .where(
        student_enrollments: {student_id: some_user.id, id: nil}, 
        active: true
    )
    .distinct
    .pluck(:id)  # abort eager loading but preserve OUTER JOIN

# second query
Course.where(id: idents)

Answer 6

Adding to the answer above, to use includes, if you want an OUTER JOIN without referencing the table in the where (like id being nil) or the reference is in a string you can use references. That would look like this:

Course.includes(:student_enrollments).references(:student_enrollments)

or

Course.includes(:student_enrollments).references(:student_enrollments).where('student_enrollments.id = ?', nil)

http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/QueryMethods.html#method-i-references