ActiveRecord joins and where

Question

I have three models Company, Deal and Slot. They are associated as Company has_many deals and Deal has_many slots. All the A company can be expired if all of its deals are expired. And a deal is expired when all of its slots are expired.

I have written a scope..

scope :expired,
  lambda { |within|
    self.select(
      'DISTINCT companies.*'
    ).latest(within).joins(
      :user =>{ :deals => :slots }
    ).where(
      "companies.spam = false AND deals.deleted_at IS NULL
        AND deals.spam = false AND slots.state = 1 
        OR slots.begin_at <= :time",
      :time => Time.zone.now + SLOT_EXPIRY_MARGIN.minutes
    )
  }

The above scope does not seem right to me from what I am trying to achieve. I need companies with all of its slots for all the deals are either in state 1 or the begin_at is less than :time making it expired.

Thanks for having a look in advance.

Answer 1

AND has a higher precedence than OR in SQL so your where actually gets parsed like this:

(
        companies.spam = false
    and deals.deleted_at is null
    and deals.spam = false
    and slots.state = 1
)
or slots.begin_at <= :time

For example (trimmed a bit for brevity):

mysql> select 1 = 2 and 3 = 4 or 5 = 5;
+---+
| 1 |
+---+

mysql> select (1 = 2 and 3 = 4) or 5 = 5;
+---+
| 1 |
+---+

mysql> select 1 = 2 and (3 = 4 or 5 = 5);
+---+
| 0 |
+---+

Also, you might want to use a placeholder instead of the literal false in the SQL, that should make things easier if you want to switch databases (but of course, database portability is largely a myth so that's just a suggestion); you could also just use not in the SQL. Furthermore, using a class method is the preferred way to accept arguments for scopes . Using scoped instead of self is also a good idea in case other scopes are already in play but if you use a class method, you don't have to care.

If we fix the grouping in your SQL with some parentheses, use a placeholder for false , and switch to a class method:

def self.expired(within)
  select('distinct companies.*').
  latest(within).
  joins(:user => { :deals => :slots }).
  where(%q{
        not companies.spam
    and not deals.spam
    and deals.deleted_at is null
    and (slots.state = 1 or slots.begin_at <= :time)
  }, :time => Time.zone.now + SLOT_EXPIRY_MARGIN.minutes)
end

You could also write it like this if you prefer little blobs of SQL rather than one big one:

def self.expired(within)
  select('distinct companies.*').
  latest(within).
  joins(:user => { :deals => :slots }).
  where('not companies.spam').
  where('not deals.spam').
  where('deals.deleted_at is null').
  where('slots.state = 1 or slots.begin_at <= :time', :time => Time.zone.now + SLOT_EXPIRY_MARGIN.minutes)
end

This one also neatly sidesteps your "missing parentheses" problem.

---

UPDATE : Based on the discussion in the comments, I think you're after something like this:

def self.expired(within)
  select('distinct companies.*').
  latest(within).
  joins(:user => :deals).
  where('not companies.spam').
  where('not deals.spam').
  where('deals.deleted_at is null').
  where(%q{
      companies.id not in (
          select company_id
          from slots
          where state     = 1
            and begin_at <= :time
          group by company_id
          having count(*) >= 10
      )
  }, :time => Time.zone.now + SLOT_EXPIRY_MARGIN.minutes
end

That bit of nastiness at the bottom grabs all the company IDs that have ten or more expired or used slots and then companies.id not in (...) excludes them from the final result set.