Changing type of ActiveRecord Class in Rails with Single Table Inheritance

Question

I have two types of classes:

BaseUser < ActiveRecord::Base 

and

User < BaseUser

which acts_as_authentic using Authlogic's authentication system. This inheritance is implemented using Single Table Inheritance

If a new user registers, I register him as a User. However, if I already have a BaseUser with the same email, I'd like to change that BaseUser to a User in the database without simply copying all the data over to the User from the BaseUser and creating a new User (i.e. with a new id). Is this possible? Thanks.

Answer 1

You can just set the type field to 'User' and save the record. The in-memory object will still show as a BaseUser but the next time you reload the in-memory object will be a User

>> b=BaseUser.new
>> b.class # = BaseUser

# Set the Type. In-Memory object is still a BaseUser
>> b.type='User'
>> b.class # = BaseUser
>> b.save

# Retrieve the records through both models (Each has the same class)

>> User.find(1).class # = User
>> BaseUser.find(1).class # User