ActiveRecord::Base Without Table

Question

This came up a bit ago ( rails model attributes without corresponding column in db ) but it looks like the Rails plugin mentioned is not maintained ( http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/activerecord_base_without_table ). Is there no way to do this with ActiveRecord as is?

If not, is there any way to get ActiveRecord validation rules without using ActiveRecord?

ActiveRecord wants the table to exist, of course.

Answer 1

This is an approach I have used in the past:

In app/models/tableless.rb

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    # Override the save method to prevent exceptions.   def save(validate = true)     validate ? valid? : true   end end 

In app/models/foo.rb

class Foo < Tableless   column :bar, :string     validates_presence_of :bar end 

In script/console

Loading development environment (Rails 2.2.2) >> foo = Foo.new => #<Foo bar: nil> >> foo.valid? => false >> foo.errors => #<ActiveRecord::Errors:0x235b270 @errors={"bar"=>["can't be blank"]}, @base=#<Foo bar: nil>>