Similar to acts_as_enumeration model returns the record where the acts_as_static_record :key option matches lookup If no key is specified, the primary_id column is used

  class User < ActiveRecord::Base
    acts_as_static_record :key => :user_name
  end

Then later we can reference the objects by the user_name

  User[:blythe]
  User['snowgiraffe']

The key used will be the underscore version of the name. Punctuation marks are removed. The following are equivalent:

 User[:blythe_snowgiraffeawesome]
 User['blythe-SNOWGIRaffe   AWESome']

 user = User.first
 User[user.user_name] == user

Clear (and reload) the record cache

The static record cache