Inherit from this class to create tableless models that are backed by a query. Behaves a little like a classic SQL view.

For example

class Award < ActiveRecord::Base
 has_many :award_type_view
end

class AwardTypeView < ActiveRecord::Illusion
 column :award_type, :string
 column :award_id, :integer

 belongs_to :award

 view do
   Award.select{
       [awards.type.as(award_type), awards.id.as(award_id)]
   }
 end

end

The cool thing is, is that the relations work on both directions

a = AwardTypeView.first

  SELECT "award_type_views".* FROM 
  (SELECT "awards"."type" AS award_type, "awards"."id" AS award_id FROM awards ) 
  award_type_views LIMIT 1

a.award

   SELECT "awards".* FROM "awards" WHERE "awards"."id" = 1 LIMIT 1

b = Award.first

   SELECT "awards".* FROM "awards" LIMIT 1

b.award_type_views

   SELECT "award_type_views".* FROM 
   (SELECT "awards"."type" AS award_type, "awards"."id" AS award_id FROM awards ) 
   award_type_views 
   WHERE "award_type_views"."award_id" = 1

Currently this gem depends on the SQUEEL SQL gem

For a more detailed example see: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6900508/how-to-create-read-only-models-in-rails-with-no-backing-table