How to convert this sql joins/count statements in clean ruby ActiveRecord - sql

Question

I'm trying to convert with no success my find_by_sql statement into a pure ActiveRecord query.
It is:
Corner.find_by_sql('SELECT corners.id, corners.name, count(members.*) FROM corners LEFT JOIN places ON corners.id = places.ubicacion_id LEFT JOIN members ON places.id = members.place_id GROUP BY corners.id,corners.name ORDER BY corners.name;')
nicely formatted, the sql expression would be:
SELECT corners.id,
corners.name,
count(members.*)
FROM corners
LEFT JOIN places ON corners.id = places.ubicacion_id
LEFT JOIN members ON places.id = members.place_id
GROUP BY corners.id,
corners.name
ORDER BY corners.name;
In very old versions of ActiveRecord, my approach would be using the find :all and then passing a hash of options, but this way is deprecated:
Corner.find( :all,
:joins => "LEFT JOIN places ON corners.id = places.ubicacion_id",
:joins => "LEFT JOIN members ON places.id = members.place_id",
:group => "corners.id,corners.name",
:order => "corners.name",
:select => "corners.id, corners.name, count(members.*)"
)
Which one would be the best approach to rewrite in the ActiveRecord way the query? This last snippet works well, but it makes no difference on using it rather than the plain sql one:
Corner.joins("LEFT JOIN places ON corners.id = places.ubicacion_id").joins("LEFT JOIN members ON places.id = members.place_id").group("corners.id,corners.name").order("corners.name").select("corners.id, corners.name, count(members.*)")
Many thanks!

Answer 1

It looks like you probably want to set up some model relationships to make this more ActiveRecord-like. You can find descriptions of how to do this in the Active Record Associations documentation.
Consider these relationships:
class Member < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :place
end
class Place < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :corner
has_many :members
end
class Corner < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :places, foreign_key: "ubicacion_id"
end
Given those, you should be able to do something like this:
Corner.
select("corners.id, corners.name, count(members.*)").
joins(:places, :members).
group("corners.id, corners.name").
order("corners.name")
Each of the methods chained in the query will refine the query incrementally, much like building a native SQL statement. You can find the official documentation for these methods in the Active Record Query Interface