I've search everywhere for a pointer to this, but can't find one. Basically, I want to do what everyone else wants to do when they create a polymorphic relationship in a :has_many, :through way… but I want to do it in a module. I keep getting stuck and think I must be overlooking something simple.

To wit:

module ActsPermissive
  module PermissiveUser
    def self.included(base)
      base.extend ClassMethods
    end
    module ClassMethods
      def acts_permissive
        has_many  :ownables
        has_many  :owned_circles, :through => :ownables
      end
    end
  end

  class PermissiveCircle < ActiveRecord::Base
    belongs_to    :ownable, :polymorphic => true
  end
end

With a migration that looks like this:

create_table :permissive_circles do |t|
  t.string :ownable_type
  t.integer :ownable_id
  t.timestamps
end

The idea, of course, is that whatever loads acts_permissive will be able to have a list of circles that it owns.

For simple tests, I have

it "should have a list of circles" do
  user = Factory :user
  user.owned_circles.should be_an_instance_of Array
end

which fails with:

Failure/Error: @user.circles.should be_an_instance_of Array
     NameError: uninitialized constant User::Ownable

I've tried: using :class_name => 'ActsPermissive::PermissiveCircle' on the has_many :ownables line, which fails with:

Failure/Error: @user.circles.should be_an_instance_of Array
     ActiveRecord::HasManyThroughSourceAssociationNotFoundError:
      Could not find the source association(s) :owned_circle or 
      :owned_circles in model ActsPermissive::PermissiveCircle. 
      Try 'has_many :owned_circles, :through => :ownables, 
      :source => <name>'. Is it one of :ownable?

while following the suggestion and setting :source => :ownable fails with

Failure/Error: @user.circles.should be_an_instance_of Array
     ActiveRecord::HasManyThroughAssociationPolymorphicSourceError:
       Cannot have a has_many :through association 'User#owned_circles' 
       on the polymorphic object 'Ownable#ownable'

Which seems to suggest that doing things with a non-polymorphic-through is necessary. So I added a circle_owner class similar to the setup here:

module ActsPermissive
  class CircleOwner < ActiveRecord::Base
    belongs_to :permissive_circle
    belongs_to :ownable, :polymorphic => true
  end

  module PermissiveUser
    def self.included(base)
      base.extend ClassMethods
    end
    module ClassMethods
      def acts_permissive
        has_many  :circle_owners, :as => :ownable
        has_many  :circles, :through => :circle_owners, 
                  :source => :ownable, 
                  :class_name => 'ActsPermissive::PermissiveCircle'
      end
    end

  class PermissiveCircle < ActiveRecord::Base
    has_many :circle_owners
  end
end

With a migration:

create_table :permissive_circles do |t|
  t.string :name
  t.string :guid

  t.timestamps
end

create_table :circle_owner do |t|
  t.string  :ownable_type
  t.string  :ownable_id
  t.integer :permissive_circle_id
end

which still fails with:

Failure/Error: @user.circles.should be_an_instance_of Array
     NameError:
       uninitialized constant User::CircleOwner

Which brings us back to the beginning.

1. How can I do what seems to be a rather common polymorphic :has_many, :through on a module?
2. Alternatively, is there a good way to allow an object to be collected by arbitrary objects in a similar way that will work with a module?