Rails where condition using NOT NIL

Question

Using the rails 3 style how would I write the opposite of:

Foo.includes(:bar).where(:bars=>{:id=>nil})

I want to find where id is NOT nil. I tried:

Foo.includes(:bar).where(:bars=>{:id=>!nil}).to_sql

But that returns:

=> "SELECT     \"foos\".* FROM       \"foos\"  WHERE  (\"bars\".\"id\" = 1)"

That's definitely not what I need, and almost seems like a bug in ARel.

Answer 1

The canonical way to do this with Rails 3:

Foo.includes(:bar).where("bars.id IS NOT NULL")

ActiveRecord 4.0 and above adds where.not so you can do this:

Foo.includes(:bar).where.not('bars.id' => nil)
Foo.includes(:bar).where.not(bars: { id: nil })

When working with scopes between tables, I prefer to leverage merge so that I can use existing scopes more easily.

Foo.includes(:bar).merge(Bar.where.not(id: nil))

Also, since includes does not always choose a join strategy, you should use references here as well, otherwise you may end up with invalid SQL.

Foo.includes(:bar)
   .references(:bar)
   .merge(Bar.where.not(id: nil))

Answer 2

It's not a bug in ARel, it's a bug in your logic.

What you want here is:

Foo.includes(:bar).where(Bar.arel_table[:id].not_eq(nil))

Answer 3

For Rails4:

So, what you're wanting is an inner join, so you really should just use the joins predicate:

  Foo.joins(:bar)

  Select * from Foo Inner Join Bars ...

But, for the record, if you want a "NOT NULL" condition simply use the not predicate:

Foo.includes(:bar).where.not(bars: {id: nil})

Select * from Foo Left Outer Join Bars on .. WHERE bars.id IS NOT NULL

Note that this syntax reports a deprecation (it talks about a string SQL snippet, but I guess the hash condition is changed to string in the parser?), so be sure to add the references to the end:

Foo.includes(:bar).where.not(bars: {id: nil}).references(:bar)

DEPRECATION WARNING: It looks like you are eager loading table(s) (one of: ....) that are referenced in a string SQL snippet. For example:

Post.includes(:comments).where("comments.title = 'foo'")

Currently, Active Record recognizes the table in the string, and knows to JOIN the comments table to the query, rather than loading comments in a separate query. However, doing this without writing a full-blown SQL parser is inherently flawed. Since we don't want to write an SQL parser, we are removing this functionality. From now on, you must explicitly tell Active Record when you are referencing a table from a string:

Post.includes(:comments).where("comments.title = 'foo'").references(:comments)

Answer 4

Not sure of this is helpful but this what worked for me in Rails 4

Foo.where.not(bar: nil)

Answer 5

With Rails 4 it's easy:

 Foo.includes(:bar).where.not(bars: {id: nil})

See also: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/active_record_querying.html#not-conditions