cancan - Accessing an external table from a Rails application -

rails 3.2 

i using api gem. client wants, keep table wants whitelist email addresses can used access api, in seprate table, can access through phpmyadmin.

this single table:

api_users 

with single column: email (in addition id, created_at, updated_at)

the email addresses go in table, exist in users table rails application.

if create model: models/api_user.rb:

class apiuser< activerecord::base   attr_accessible :email 

and, in models/api_ability.rb, add following:

class apiability   include cancan::ability    def initialize(user, params = {})     user ||= user.new        if apiuser.find_by_email(user.email)       can :manage, :api     end   end  end 

will work?

that sounds absolutely doable. might want add like

def readonly?   true end 

to apiuser class make sure no 1 try create instances of within rails. apart don't see reason not way given clients requirements.