Get validation error messages without saving

Question

Post
  :belongs_to :user

User
  :has_many :posts

In my signup workflow they draft a Post first, then on the next page enter their User information to signup.

# intermediate step, validate that Post is valid before moving on to User creation
# posts_controller:

@post = Post.new(params[:post])
if @post.valid?
  # go on to create User
else
  render 'new'
end

BUT! @post error messages aren't created since I'm not saving the @post model I'm just checking for .valid?. How do I create the error messages without saving?

Answer 1

If I understand your question correctly you want to get the errors without saving the model?

That is exactly what is happening. @post.valid?

will return true or false depending on whether there are any errors. If there are errors. they will be added to @post.errorshash.

In the situation where you want to save just call @post.save It will return true if successfully saved or false if errors are present while populating @post.errors in the process

Answer 2

According to documentation, once you've called #valid? or #invalid? on a record, #errors is populated.