PG::Error: ERROR: column reference “status” is ambiguous in active_admin

Question

Using rails 3.2 with active_admin and seeing PG::Error: ERROR: column reference "status" is ambiguous when using a custom filter on active_admin in Rents.rb :

filter :travel_car_brand, as: :string
filter :travel_car_model, as: :string

The error points to:

: SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT "rents"."id") FROM "rents" LEFT OUTER JOIN "travels" ON "travels"."id" = "rents"."travel_id" LEFT OUTER JOIN "cars" ON "cars"."travel_id" = "travels"."id" WHERE ("cars"."brand" ILIKE '%mazda%') AND ("startDate" > '2014-08-04 10:15:14 +0200' and status = 'paid'):

it's interesting that the above has status = 'paid' since I'm not sure why its using that as a filter.

models

Rent.rb
belongs_to :travel

Travel.rb
has_one :car

and both rents table and travels table have a status attribute.

Answer 1

I've seen Lucas' answer but if this is a rails app, the SQL should be generated by the application, not hardcoded. Therefore changing the SQL directly is not the solution.

Instead, I would suggest you find the code that is adding the "paid" filter and modify it to declare the relevant model name.

Somewhere you probably have a scope:

scope :paid, where(status: 'paid')

change that to (for example):

scope :paid, where("model.status = 'paid'")

Answer 2

You need to chose wich table you want your attribute to select, or use both

eg

SELECT
COUNT(DISTINCT "rents"."id")
FROM "rents"
LEFT OUTER JOIN "travels" ON "travels"."id" = "rents"."travel_id"
LEFT OUTER JOIN "cars" ON "cars"."travel_id" = "travels"."id"
WHERE ("cars"."brand" ILIKE '%mazda%')
AND ("startDate" > '2014-08-04 10:15:14 +0200') 
AND rents.status = 'paid'

or if you require both:

SELECT
COUNT(DISTINCT "rents"."id")
FROM "rents"
LEFT OUTER JOIN "travels" ON "travels"."id" = "rents"."travel_id"
LEFT OUTER JOIN "cars" ON "cars"."travel_id" = "travels"."id"
WHERE ("cars"."brand" ILIKE '%mazda%')
AND ("startDate" > '2014-08-04 10:15:14 +0200')
AND rents.status = 'paid'
AND travels.status = 'paid'

Answer 3

Your "status" column is ambiguous. Because SQL can't understand which one table's column you want. Rent.status or Travels.status that SQL can not understand.