ruby-on-rails - dependent deletes on polymorphic relations

Question

I'm using a Polymorphic relation with multiple tables. Object Window has ChartWindow, PluginWindow or PortletWindow. I used a class_eval (relate_to_details) technique to define detail tables so that each object can have it's own table with distinct attributes.

PluginWindowDetail is the detail table for PluginWindow. PluginWindow has a plugin_id (plugin_window_details.plugin_id) So, I defined a has_one association in PluginWindow ( has_one :plugin_window_detail, :dependent => :delete) because I want the Window to be deleted with the Plugin is deleted.

However, I realized that this isn't getting me what I want. Deleting the PluginWindowDetail won't delete the PluginWindow.. and since I'm using the class_eval technique instead of a regular ActiveRecord association, I'm not sure how I can do this without coding it myself (which maybe I should)

Anyways.. gists with code are here https://gist.github.com/3206666 . Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

I think the simpler way to do it is to use the before_destroy callback. It will be more flexible.