Rails Tip: AR eager loading and :select

The AR::Base.find support the options of :include (for adding associations as JOINs in the select) and :select (which pinpoints the columns you wish to select.
For some reason, it is impossible to do them both toghther for example

Article.find(:all, :include => :author, :select => 'authors.name')

This line will raise an exception.
Luckily, there is the select_with_include gem which enables this feature!

first, install the gem

gem install select_with_include

next, require it in your environment configuration file (or in environment.rb)

require 'include_with_select'

Now, you can use the :select option, remembering to use the table name even if a column name is not unique.
There is a single fault back, in case you want to select all the table columns, you need to write them all, one by one. yeah, it sucks.