Form validation and processing w/o model (no Db/ActiveRecord)

Rails
1

All -
Trying not to fight rails on this, basically have a form and all the
same as
would be with an ActiveRecord model except that there is no table. I
started
out using this article:

…which is kind of a hack by inheriting ActiveRecord in to non-AR model
but
am running into some problems and just have the feeling that I am
fighting
rails and going to spend more time on this than the benefit warrants.

All am looking to do is receive and validate form input, and ideally
have
the luxuries like Class.new(params[:object]),
Class.update_attributes(params[:object]), and for the form to do similar
highlighting and error feedback messages as AR.

I found this plug-in: active_form
(GitHub - nesquena/active_form: Submission to github of validation plugin for non-activerecord models.).
Wondering if anyone has used or has better ideas.

David

2

Here is what I do:

class Tableless < ActiveRecord::Base
def self.columns
@columns ||= [];
end

def self.column(name, sql_type = nil, default = nil, null = true)
columns << ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::Column.new(name.to_s,
default, sql_type.to_s, null)
end
end

Class Contact < Tableless
column :address, :string
column :message, :text

validates_presence_of :message, :address
end

It works perfectly in Rails 2.3.8, it might break in Rails 3 I haven’t
tested yet.

3

On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 1:27 PM, Fernando P.
[email protected]wrote:
Here is what I do:

class Tableless < ActiveRecord::Base
def self.columns
@columns ||= [];
end

def self.column(name, sql_type = nil, default = nil, null = true)
columns << ActiveRecord::

validates_presence_of :message, :address
end

It works perfectly in Rails 2.3.8, it might break in Rails 3 I haven’t
tested yet.

Thanks Fernando. That is exactly what I was doing (but getting an error)
but
your telling me it works perfectly for you made me look further and I
found
an error in a field name that I was validating — so now all works
well.
Good to have confirmation that this structure is being used successfully
by
others.

David