Gee… it sure would be awesome if ActiveResource actually allowed us to do client-side validation of our ActiveResource objects like the ActiveResource::Base documentation promises

To install, add this to your environment.rb:

config.gem 'veracious', :version => '0.0.2', :lib => 'veracious', :source => 'http://gemcutter.org'

Next, go to the root of your project in a shell and run this command (you may need to use “sudo” depending on your environment):

sh# rake gems:install

You can now create a protected “validate” method in your ActiveResource::Base-derived class:

class Book < ActiveResource::Base
  self.site = 'http://myservice.domain'

  protected
  def validate
    errors.add(:author, 'is required') if (author.blank? rescue true)
  end
end

Now, in your code, you can do the following:

console> b = Book.new
console> b.valid?
  ==> false
console> b.author = ''
console> b.valid?
  ==> false
console> b.author = 'Iain M. Banks'
console> b.valid?
  ==> true

When you call the valid? method on your active resource object, it will do client side validation. It will not send a request to the service provider for validation.