Support establishing connection on ActiveRecord::Model.

This is the 'top level' connection, inherited by any models that include
ActiveRecord::Model or inherit from ActiveRecord::Base.

1 files changed, 8 insertions, 7 deletions

diff --git a/activerecord/lib/active_record/core.rb b/activerecord/lib/active_record/core.rb
index c29a0032bc..2379c09ea0 100644
--- a/activerecord/lib/active_record/core.rb
+++ b/activerecord/lib/active_record/core.rb
@@ -119,13 +119,7 @@ module ActiveRecord
       end
 
       def arel_engine
-        @arel_engine ||= begin
-          if self == ActiveRecord::Base
-            ActiveRecord::Base
-          else
-            connection_handler.connection_pools[name] ? self : active_record_super.arel_engine
-          end
-        end
+        @arel_engine ||= connection_handler.connection_pools[name] ? self : active_record_super.arel_engine
       end
 
       private
@@ -304,6 +298,13 @@ module ActiveRecord
       @readonly = true
     end
 
+    # Returns the connection currently associated with the class. This can
+    # also be used to "borrow" the connection to do database work that isn't
+    # easily done without going straight to SQL.
+    def connection
+      self.class.connection
+    end
+
     # Returns the contents of the record as a nicely formatted string.
     def inspect
       inspection = if @attributes