Question

I would like to create an object which both validates the presence of a parent object AND validates the validity of the parent object. However I would like to create it independently of the parent object and I’m not sure how to do so.

This is my code:

class User
  has_many :questions
end

class Question
  belongs_to :user
  validates_presence_of :user
  validates_associated :user
end

I know I can do this:

u = User.create
q = u.questions.create

but I need to do this

u = User.create
q = Question.create(:user_id => u.id)

q.valid? 
=> false

q.errors?
=> <OrderedHash {:user=>["can't be blank"]}>

What is the correct way to deal with this?

Should I use

 class User 
 ...
   before(:save) do
     self.user = User.find(self.user_id)
   end

 end

This seems unnecessarily messy – is there a better way?

Answer 1

You should maybe use validates_the_presence_of :user_id in the Question Model instead of validates_presence_of :user.

I hope it would help.