Another Rails developer told me that you can override the name using:

inheritance_column()- Defines the column name for use with single
table inheritance — can be overridden in subclasses.

RickM


--- In RubyOnRails@yahoogroups.com, "gigi_thom" <gigi_thom@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I've been playing around with RoR, and love it and am implementing a
> project which I want to use the Single Table Inheritance Feature. The
> convention is to use the column name 'type' to indicate the type name,
> however using Firebird or MySQL 5, 'type' is a reserved word and cannot
> be used as a column name.
>
> What is the convention for changing the column name but can still use
> the single inheritance feature?
>
> Would really appreciate it.
>
> Cheers,
> Gigi
>