class Friend < Person xml_accessor :url field :url validates_presence_of :url validates_format_of :url, :with => /^(http|https):\/\/[a-z0-9]+([\-\.]{1}[a-z0-9]+)*\.[a-z]{2,5}(([0-9]{1,5})?\/.*)?$/ix #validate {self.url ! = User.first.url} before_validation :clean_url protected def clean_url if self.url self.url = 'http://' + self.url unless self.url.match('http://' || 'https://') self.url = self.url + '/' if self.url[-1,1] != '/' end end end