You might often want to connect to different databases using ActiveRecord. Here’s how you do it:

#DB definitions:

class DatabaseCurrent < ActiveRecord::Base
  self.abstract_class = true
  establish_connection settings['database']
end

class DatabaseOld < ActiveRecord::Base
  self.abstract_class = true
  establish_connection settings['database2']
end

#Model definitions (current):

class Video < DatabaseCurrent
  belongs_to :user

  set_table_name :videos
end

class Photo < DatabaseCurrent
  belongs_to :user

  set_table_name :photos
end

class User < DatabaseCurrent
  has_many :videos
  has_many :photos

  set_table_name :user
end

class Tag < DatabaseCurrent
  set_table_name :tag
end

#Model definitions (old):

class FileDB < DatabaseOld
  set_table_name :file
end

Pretty easy. The only thing to note is that you should set_table_name, otherwise, AR chokes up. Also, often you want to directly play directly with SQL. Unfortunately, ActiveRecord::Base.execute doesn’t work any longer (coz it doesn’t have a connection), but you can do it this way:

DatabaseCurrent.connection.execute("SQL")

That’s the tutorial for the day!