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= Active Model - defined interfaces for Rails

Prior to Rails 3.0, if a plugin or gem developer wanted to be able to have
an object interact with Action Pack helpers, it was required to either
copy chunks of code from Rails, or monkey patch entire helpers to make them
handle objects that did not look like Active Record.  This generated code
duplication and fragile applications that broke on upgrades.

Active Model is a solution for this problem.

Active Model provides a known set of interfaces that your objects can implement
to then present a common interface to the Action Pack helpers.  You can include
functionality from the following modules:

* Adding attribute magic to your objects

    Add prefixes and suffixes to defined attribute methods...
    
    class Person
      include ActiveModel::AttributeMethods
      
      attribute_method_prefix 'clear_'
      define_attribute_methods [:name, :age]
      
      attr_accessor :name, :age
    
      def clear_attribute(attr)
        send("#{attr}=", nil)
      end
    end
    
    ...gives you clear_name, clear_age.
  
  {Learn more}[link:classes/ActiveModel/AttributeMethods.html]
  
* Adding callbacks to your objects

    class Person
      extend ActiveModel::Callbacks
      define_model_callbacks :create
    
      def create
        _run_create_callbacks do
          # Your create action methods here
        end
      end
    end
    
    ...gives you before_create, around_create and after_create class methods that
    wrap your create method.
   
  {Learn more}[link:classes/ActiveModel/CallBacks.html]

* For classes that already look like an Active Record object

    class Person
      include ActiveModel::Conversion
    end
    
    ...returns the class itself when sent :to_model

   {Learn more}[link:classes/ActiveModel/Conversion.html]

* Tracking changes in your object

    Provides all the value tracking features implemented by ActiveRecord...
    
    person = Person.new
    person.name # => nil
    person.changed? # => false
    person.name = 'bob'
    person.changed? # => true
    person.changed # => ['name']
    person.changes # => { 'name' => [nil, 'bob'] }
    person.name = 'robert'
    person.save
    person.previous_changes # => {'name' => ['bob, 'robert']}

  {Learn more}[link:classes/ActiveModel/Dirty.html]