Example of a tabless model that lets you harness the power of activerecord, without the baggage of a DB table

tabless_model.rb

## A "Tabless" Model that you can extend to get the features and benefits
## of an ActiveRecord model, without having to persist anything to the database
class TablessModel < ActiveRecord::Base
  self.abstract_class = true
  
  def self.columns() @columns ||= []; end      
  
  def self.column(name, sql_type = nil, default = nil, null = true)
    columns << ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::Column.new(name.to_s, default, sql_type.to_s, null)
  end
end

## Now just extend your model and set it's attributes (columns)
class Person < TablessModel

  # Tabless model field definitions...
  column :name, :string
  column :email, :string
  
  #....validates, callbacks, public methods, etc....
end