Skip validation for some members in associated models during create/update

Question

I have the following 4 models

Hotel (name)
  has_one :address
  has_one :contact
  has_one :bank_account
  validates_presence_of :name
  def build_dependencies
    build_contact
    build_address
    build_bank_account
  end

Address (phone, street_address, hotel_id)
  belongs_to :hotel
  validates_presence_of :phone, :street_address

Contact (name, email, hotel_id)
  belongs_to :hotel
  validates_presence_of :name, :email

BankAccount (name, number, hotel_id)
  belongs_to :hotel
  validates_presence_of :name, :number

In a form used to create a Hotel, I take input for both name and email for the Contact model but only phone for the Address model.

HotelController#new
  @hotel = Hotel.new
  @hotel.build_dependencies #this creates empty Contact and Address to generate the form fields
  #render the form to create the hotel

HotelController#create
  #receive form data
  @hotel = Hotel.new
  @hotel.build_dependencies
  @hotel.save :validate => false
  @hotel.attributes = params[:hotel]
  @hotel.save :validate => false

This is the only way I was able to create a Hotel with contact information, phone from address and empty bank account. I had to call

@hotel.save :validate => false

the first time to save the Hotel instance with blank instances of BankAccount, Address, Contact. Then I had to update_attributes on contact and address and then

@hotel.save :validate => false

to ensure that the original form data got saved completely as expected.

This, beyond doubt, is a very bad piece of code. Can anyone tell me how to clean this up?

Answer 1

Address
  validates_presence_of :phone, :on => :create, :if => proc { |u| u.creating_hotel? }
  validates_presence_of :street, :phone, :on => :update

Contact
  validates_presence_of :name, :email :on => :update

def creating_hotel?
  addressable_type == 'Hotel'
end

The user sees the :street, :name, :email fields only after the hotel is created and :phone during the creation.