Automatic creation of a has_one associated object when it is first accessed.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_one :profile, :autocreate => true
end

class Profile < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :user
end

# make a single user
>> user = User.create(:name => 'Dr. User')
=> #<User id: 1, name: "Dr. User">

# look for any profile objects
>> Profile.count
=> 0

# access the user's profile object to see it automatically created
>> user.profile
=> #<Profile id: 1, title: nil, user_id: 1>

As a Rails plugin.

./script/plugin install git://github.com/jqr/has_one_autocreate.git

Prefer gems? Add this to your environment.rb and run the following command.

config.gem 'has_one_autocreate'

$ rake gems:install

rdoc.info/projects/jqr/has_one_autocreate

Homepage

github.com/jqr/has_one_autocreate

License

Copyright © 2008 Elijah Miller <[email protected]>, released under the MIT license.