Check if mysql table already exist

Question

I use activerecord to connect to a mysql database and to create a table after the connection. So far it works great, the problem is that I don't know how to check if the table already exist. I thought it would work with table.exist? but somehow I didn't... ...So this is what I got so far:

ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(
        :adapter => "mysql",
        :host => "localhost",
        :username => "my-username",
        :password => "my-password",
        :database => "my-db",
        :encoding => "UTF8"
    )

    # How to check if it exists already? table_name.table.exist? doesnt really work...
    name = "my_table"
if name.!table.exist?
    ActiveRecord::Schema.define do
        create_table :"#{name}" do |table|
            table.column :foo, :string
            table.column :bar, :string
        end
    end
else
puts "Table exist already..."
end
    # Create ActiveRecord object for the mysql table
    class Table < ActiveRecord::Base
        set_table_name "#{name}"
    end

Answer 1

You need to use the #tables method on the database connection.

unless ActiveRecord::Base.connection.tables.include? name
  ActiveRecord::Schema.define do
    create_table :"#{name}" do |table|
      table.column :foo, :string
      table.column :bar, :string
    end
  end
end