Question

Given the relationship expressed below:

class Parent < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :children, :dependent => :destroy

  accepts_nested_attributes_for :child
end

class Child < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :parent

  validates :name, :presence => true
end

Let’s assume we have a parent object with multiple children, one or more of which have errors that cause parent.valid? to return false.

parent = Parent.new
parent.build_child(:name => "steve")
parent.build_child()
parent.valid?

Is there a way to access the child element that caused the errors when looking at the parent.errors object?

Answer 1

As John suggested in the comments, I ended up ignoring the errors added to the parent for the children and traversing the children and adding their errors manually. The issue was complicated by having a couple has_many :through relationships, but John’s suggestion was the essence of what I ended up using.