I've made a big change for any of you using my "acts as attachment plugin":http://svn.techno-weenie.net/projects/plugins/acts_as_attachment/. It no longer validates your fields for you. Gasp!

I got an email from Michael Trier asking how to override validations. I don't know why in the world anyone would not want to validate their size, content_type, or filename fields, but there it is. So what were my options?

Be an opinionated bastard. This works for my projects, go write your own attachment plugin!

Add a configuration option like :validate => false that somehow sets the ":if option":http://rails.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Validations/ClassMethods.html#M000813 to false.

Rip the validations out and let the coder do it.

I went with option # 3 because it provides the most flexibility, without imposing new options and features to learn. There are only two validations used anyway, but I provided a validation macro for assistance. I figure having less logic in my plugin is better. Next on the chopping block? RMagick........

class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_attachment

  # validations
  validates_presence_of :size, :content_type, :filename
  validate :attachment_attributes_valid?

  # or
  validates_as_attachment
end

Thoughts on my approach?

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