I currently have a model Attend that will have a status column, and this status column will only have a few values for it. STATUS_OPTIONS = {:yes, :no, :maybe}
1) I am not sure how i can validate this before a user inserts an Attend? Basically an enum in java but how could i do this in rails?
Create a globally accessible array of the options you want, then validate the value of your status column:
class Attend < ActiveRecord::Base
STATUS_OPTIONS = %w(yes no maybe)
validates :status, :inclusion => {:in => STATUS_OPTIONS}
end
You could then access the possible statuses via Attend::STATUS_OPTIONS