Question

I didn’t define the problem correctly the first time. I tried to make a simple example and failed. Let’s try again 🙂

I have an Address Model that validates the street, city, state, and zip attributes all exist. Then we have a Person Model that has a one to many relationship with Address. We have a student model but it DOESN’T inherit off person, it just has_one (I didn’t completely understand how inheritance worked in ruby when I started). We have a Classroom model that also has_on person (again, not inherited.) So the issue is we want to require an address for the student, but not the Classroom. Hopefully this is a little more clear now. Thanks!

Answer 1

You can use validates or validates_presence_of in only your Student model.

class Person
  has_many :addresses
end

class Student < Person
  validates :addresses, :presence => true
end

class Teacher < Person
end