class ConnectionHandler

ConnectionHandler is a collection of ConnectionPool objects. It is used for keeping separate connection pools for Active Record models that connect to different databases.

For example, suppose that you have 5 models, with the following hierarchy:

class Author < ActiveRecord::Base
end

class BankAccount < ActiveRecord::Base
end

class Book < ActiveRecord::Base
  establish_connection "library_db"
end

class ScaryBook < Book
end

class GoodBook < Book
end

And a database.yml that looked like this:

development:
  database: my_application
  host: localhost

library_db:
  database: library
  host: some.library.org

Your primary database in the development environment is “my_application” but the Book model connects to a separate database called “library_db” (this can even be a database on a different machine).

Book, ScaryBook and GoodBook will all use the same connection pool to “library_db” while Author, BankAccount, and any other models you create will use the default connection pool to “my_application”.

The various connection pools are managed by a single instance of ConnectionHandler accessible via ActiveRecord::Base.connection_handler. All Active Record models use this handler to determine the connection pool that they should use.