Return nil from read_attribute(:foo) if 'foo' is not present in the @attributes hash, but the _foo method has been defined. This brings the behaviour into line with the 3-0-stable branch and the master branch before 93641ed6c8c684f6b4db02b6c8a22fa9bc7f0eaf (there were previously no assertions about this which is why the change slipped through). Note that actually calling the 'foo' method will still raise an error if the attribute is not present.

2 files changed, 3 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/activerecord/lib/active_record/attribute_methods/read.rb b/activerecord/lib/active_record/attribute_methods/read.rb
index cd6c4002d2..a248eb3a7b 100644
--- a/activerecord/lib/active_record/attribute_methods/read.rb
+++ b/activerecord/lib/active_record/attribute_methods/read.rb
@@ -100,7 +100,7 @@ module ActiveRecord
       # "2004-12-12" in a data column is cast to a date object, like Date.new(2004, 12, 12)).
       def read_attribute(attr_name)
         if respond_to? "_#{attr_name}"
-          send "_#{attr_name}"
+          send "_#{attr_name}" if @attributes.has_key?(attr_name.to_s)
         else
           _read_attribute attr_name
         end
diff --git a/activerecord/test/cases/finder_test.rb b/activerecord/test/cases/finder_test.rb
index 3c242667eb..655437318f 100644
--- a/activerecord/test/cases/finder_test.rb
+++ b/activerecord/test/cases/finder_test.rb
@@ -247,9 +247,10 @@ class FinderTest < ActiveRecord::TestCase
   def test_find_only_some_columns
     topic = Topic.find(1, :select => "author_name")
     assert_raise(ActiveModel::MissingAttributeError) {topic.title}
+    assert_nil topic.read_attribute("title")
     assert_equal "David", topic.author_name
     assert !topic.attribute_present?("title")
-    #assert !topic.respond_to?("title")
+    assert !topic.attribute_present?(:title)
     assert topic.attribute_present?("author_name")
     assert_respond_to topic, "author_name"
   end