Namespacing within `app` directory

Question

In our app directory, we want some of the sub-directories to contain namespaced classes, and some that contain top-level classes. For example:

• app/models/user.rb defines ::User
• app/operations/foo.rb defines ::Operations::Foo
• app/operations/user/foo.rb defines ::Operations::User::Foo

Our application.rb contains the following configuration:

config.paths = Rails::Paths::Root.new(Rails.root)
config.paths.add 'app/models', eager_load: true
config.paths.add 'app', eager_load: true

This works fine in most cases, but sometimes in development mode and with Rails' autoreloading turned on, this leads to the wrong classes being loaded. For instance ::User is mistaken for Operations::User and vice-versa.

Is there a way to configure this behavior so that it works without any errors?

If not, the only workaround I can think of is to create a second directory for "namespaced" classes, along the lines of app and app_namespaced. Or else app/namespaced, since app-level code should reside within app. But these seem like ugly workarounds to me.

Edit: A little example as asked for by @dgilperez:

# app/models/user.rb
class User
end

# app/models/group.rb
class Group
  def some_method
    # Since we're in a top-level namespace, User should always
    # resolve to ::User. But, depending on some seemingly random
    # factors, it sometimes resolves to Operations::User.
    User.new
  end
end

# app/operations.rb
module Operations
end

# app/operations/user/create.rb
module Operations::User
  class Create
    def some_method
      # Here, as expected, I need to prefix with "::" as
      # 'User' would refer to the module we're currently in.
      # That's fine and works.
      ::User.new
    end
  end
end

Answer 1

Yes, this is a downside of rails' autoloading. By default, it loads everything from /app, but first level of directory structure is not part of the names. It's so that app/models/user.rb can define User, not require it to be Models::User.

You don't need to mess with the load paths. Several approaches/workarounds available here.

1. In my current project we just double the namespacing directory. Meaning that if we want to define ServiceObjects::User::Import, we put it into app/service_objects/service_objects/user/import.rb

2. I personally prefer a variation of that approach, which is to put all "non-standard" stuff into app/lib (can be app/custom or anything you want). This way, there's no weird duplication of directory names and all custom code is nicely contained.