# Cleare errors on a given attribute **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [December 29, 2006, 6:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cleare-errors-on-a-given-attribute/80657 "2006-12-29T18:05:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![fedot](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/82dd89/32.png) [@fedot](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fedot)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2006, 6:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cleare-errors-on-a-given-attribute/80657/1 "2006-12-29T18:05:24Z")
I’ve been studying Rails source code to figure out how to clear ActiveRecord errors for a given attribute name. It appears that there is no direct API to do that. The best workaround I found is this: active\_record.errors.add(attribute\_name, “dummy”).clear Basically, “add” returns an array of error messages for given attribute name, which I subsequently clear. Seems to work, but doesn’t feel “right”. In case anyone wonders why in the world I needed such functionality, here is a brief explanation. I have an object with a has\_many association. If any of the children fail validation, the following error is displayed for the parent object: “(insert association name here) is invalid”. I do not find this particular error message to be very informative and instead would rather display exact children errors. Hence, I would like to make a sweep over parent object errors and remove any errors on associations after validation but before rendering. If anyone has any better suggestions on better displaying children errors, I am all ears 🙂 Regards, Fyodor Golos ---
**Author:** ![fedot](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/82dd89/32.png) [@fedot](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fedot)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2006, 6:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cleare-errors-on-a-given-attribute/80657/2 "2006-12-29T18:09:09Z")
My bad. Wrong list. Reposted in “Ruby on Rails”