I have an object which whether validation happens or not should depend on a boolean, or in another way, validation is optional. I haven't found a clean way to do it. What I'm currently doing is this (disclaimer: you cannot unsee, leave this page if you are too sensitive):

def valid?
  if perform_validation
    super
  else
    super        # Call valid? so that callbacks get called and things like encrypting passwords and generating salt in before_validation actually happen
    errors.clear # but then clear the errors
    true         # and claim ourselves to be valid. This is super hacky!
  end
end

Any better ways?

Before you point to the :if argument of many validations, this is for a user model which is using authlogic so it has a lot of validation rules. You can stop reading here if you belive me.

If you don't, authlogic already sets some :ifs like:

:if => :email_changed?

which I have to turn into

:if => Proc.new {|user| user.email_changed? and user.perform_validation}

and in some other cases, since I'm also using authlogic-oid (OpenID) I just don't have control over the :if, authlogic-oid sets it in a way I cannot change it (in time) without further monkey patching. So I have to override seemingly unrelated functions, catch exceptions if a method doesn't exist, etc. The previous hacky solution if the best of my two attempts.