How to validate only certain instances of a rails model - ruby-on-rails

What is wrong with my model that I can't see the #black? method?
Error:
undefined method `black?' for Car:Class
Car Modal
# frozen_string_literal: true
class Cars < Base
if black?
validates :style, presence: true
end
private
def black?
color_options.include?("black")
end
end
If I do...
validates :style, presence: true, if: :seller?
The code works, but I plan on adding many more validations in the if statement block, so it would be nice to get the if statement block (if end) working.

You're calling black? on the class, not on an instance of the class. At the point that your if black? code is called, self evaluates to Cars! It wouldn't make any sense to call Cars.black? - you want to know if a single instance of the car is black!
It is good practice to wrap all your various validation conditions into a single predicate which you then reference with the :if syntax.
For example, if you had a complex set of conditions, you might set up a validator:
class Cars
validates :style, presence: true, if: :validate_style?
private
def validate_style?
color_options.include?("black") ||
wheel_options.include?("premium") ||
Time.now.wday == 3
end
end

Related

Rails: how to validate an object field's value before save?

I'm writing a Redmine plugin that should check if some fields of an Issue are filled depending on values in other fields.
I've written a plugin that implements validate callback, but I don't know how to check field values which are going to be saved.
This is what I have so far:
module IssuePatch
def self.included(receiver)
receiver.class_eval do
unloadable
validate :require_comment_when_risk
protected
def require_comment_when_risk
risk_reduction = self.custom_value_for(3)
if risk_reduction.nil? || risk_reduction.value == 0
return true
end
comment2 = self.custom_value_for(4)
if comment2.nil? || comment2.value.empty?
errors.add(:comment2, "Comment2 is empty")
end
end
end
end
end
The problem here is that self.custom_value_for() returns the value already written to the DB, but not the one that is going to be written, so validation doesn't work. How do I check for the value that was passed from the web-form?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
The nice thing about rails is that in your controller you don't have to validate anything. You are suppose to do all of this in your model. so in your model you should be doing something like
validates :value_that_you_care_about, :numericality => { :greater_than_or_equal_to => 0 }
or
validates :buyer_name, presence: true, :length => {:minimum => 4}
or
validates :delivery_location, presence: true
If any of these fail this will stop the object from being saved and if you are using rails scaffolding will actually highlight the field that is incorrect and give them and error message explaining what is wrong. You can also write your own validations such as
def enough_red_flowers inventory
if inventory.total_red_flowers-self.red_flower_quantity < 0
self.errors.add(:base, 'There are not enough Red Flowers Currently')
return false
end
inventory.total_red_flowers = inventory.total_red_flowers-self.red_flower_quantity
inventory.save
true
end
To write your own custom message just follow the example of self.errors.add(:base, 'your message')
You can find more validations here
Better way it's create custom validator
class FileValidator < ActiveModel::EachValidator
def validate_each(record, attribute, value)
# some logic for validation
end
end
then in model:
validates :file, file: true

Changing validation rules on-the-fly

I need a conditional validation in some parts of my app. Right now I am using the following scheme:
User.create
User::WithPassword.create
User::WithPhone.create
It would be cool if I could change class behaviour on the fly like this:
User.with_phone.with_password.create
So I tried to do it like this:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
validates :phone, presence: true, if: :phone_required?
def self.with_phone
define_method(:phone_required?) { true }
self
end
private
def phone_required?
false
end
end
So it can be used like this where needed:
User.with_phone.create(user_params)
The problem with this approach is that all instances of User get new behaviour since the actual class changes.
Is there a way to return only the modified copy of User class with new instance method phone_required? without affecting the "base" class?
Update
Thank you for the comments as this was more of an idea, the requirement is that I create users without certain validation automatically, and then when they edit profile, they are dealing with pristine User model. I create with_/without_ on the fly in method missing when needed.
Here's my next iteration:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
validates :phone, presence: true, if: :phone_required?
def self.with_password
define_singleton_method(:password_required?) { true }
self
end
def password_required?
self.class.try :password_required?
end
end
Apparently it's not any better as the singleton method stays there all the time.
Why not simply use an instance variable initialized at creation time?
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
validates :phone, presence: true, if: :phone_required?
#phone_required = false
def self.create_with_phone(params)
obj = self.create(params)
obj.phone_required = true
end
private
def phone_required=(v)
#phone_required = v
end
def phone_required?
#phone_required
end
end
User.create_with_phone(user_params)

How does one put validations on individual ActiveModel/ActiveRecord objects?

You have a model, say, Car. Some validations apply to every Car instance, all the time:
class Car
include ActiveModel::Model
validates :engine, :presence => true
validates :vin, :presence => true
end
But some validations are only relevant in specific contexts, so only certain instances should have them. You'd like to do this somewhere:
c = Car.new
c.extend HasWinterTires
c.valid?
Those validations go elsewhere, into a different module:
module HasWinterTires
# Can't go fast with winter tires.
validates :speed, :inclusion => { :in => 0..30 }
end
If you do this, validates will fail since it's not defined in Module. If you add include ActiveModel::Validations, that won't work either since it needs to be included on a class.
What's the right way to put validations on model instances without stuffing more things into the original class?
There are several solutions to this problem. The best one probably depends on your particular needs. The examples below will use this simple model:
class Record
include ActiveModel::Validations
validates :value, presence: true
attr_accessor :value
end
Rails 4 only
Use singleton_class
ActiveSupport::Callbacks were completely overhauled in Rails 4 and putting validations on the singleton_class will now work. This was not possible in Rails 3 due to the implementation directly referring to self.class.
record = Record.new value: 1
record.singleton_class.validates :value, numericality: {greater_than: 1_000_000}
record.valid? || record.errors.full_messages
# => ["Value must be greater than 1000000"]
Rails 3 and 4
In Rails 3, validations are also implemented using ActiveSupport::Callbacks. Callbacks exist on the class, and while the callbacks themselves are accessed on a class attribute which can be overridden at the instance-level, taking advantage of that requires writing some very implementation-dependent glue code. Additionally, the "validates" and "validate" methods are class methods, so you basically you need a class.
Use subclasses
This is probably the best solution in Rails 3 unless you need composability. You will inherit the base validations from the superclass.
class BigRecord < Record
validates :value, numericality: {greater_than: 1_000_000}
end
record = BigRecord.new value: 1
record.valid? || record.errors.full_messages
# => ["Value must be greater than 1000000"]
For ActiveRecord objects, there are several ways to "cast" a superclass object to a subclass. subclass_record = record.becomes(subclass) is one way.
Note that this will also preserve the class methods validators and validators_on(attribute). The SimpleForm gem, for example, uses these to test for the existence of a PresenceValidator to add "required" CSS classes to the appropriate form fields.
Use validation contexts
Validation contexts are one of the "official" Rails ways to have different validations for objects of the same class. Unfortunately, validation can only occur in a single context.
class Record
include ActiveModel::Validations
validates :value, presence: true
attr_accessor :value
# This can also be put into a module (or Concern) and included
with_options :on => :big_record do |model|
model.validates :value, numericality: {greater_than: 1_000_000}
end
end
record = Record.new value: 1
record.valid?(:big_record) || record.errors.full_messages
# => ["Value must be greater than 1000000"]
# alternatively, e.g., if passing to other code that won't supply a context:
record.define_singleton_method(:valid?) { super(:big_record) }
record.valid? || record.errors.full_messages
# => ["Value must be greater than 1000000"]
Use #validates_with instance method
#validates_with is one of the only instance methods available for validation. It accepts one or more validator classes and any options, which will be passed to all classes. It will immediately instantiate the class(es) and pass the record to them, so it needs to be run from within a call to #valid?.
module Record::BigValidations
def valid?(context=nil)
super.tap do
# (must validate after super, which calls errors.clear)
validates_with ActiveModel::Validations::NumericalityValidator,
:greater_than => 1_000_000,
:attributes => [:value]
end && errors.empty?
end
end
record = Record.new value: 1
record.extend Record::BigValidations
record.valid? || record.errors.full_messages
# => ["Value must be greater than 1000000"]
For Rails 3, this is probably your best bet if you need composition and have so many combinations that subclasses are impractical. You can extend with multiple modules.
Use SimpleDelegator
big_record_delegator = Class.new(SimpleDelegator) do
include ActiveModel::Validations
validates :value, numericality: {greater_than: 1_000_000}
def valid?(context=nil)
return true if __getobj__.valid?(context) && super
# merge errors
__getobj__.errors.each do |key, error|
errors.add(key, error) unless errors.added?(key, error)
end
false
end
# required for anonymous classes
def self.model_name
Record.model_name
end
end
record = Record.new value: 1
big_record = big_record_delegator.new(record)
big_record.valid? || big_record.errors.full_messages
# => ["Value must be greater than 1000000"]
I used an anonymous class here to give an example of using a "disposable" class. If you had dynamic enough validations such that well-defined subclasses were impractical, but you still wanted to use the "validate/validates" class macros, you could create an anonymous class using Class.new.
One thing you probably don't want to do is create anonymous subclasses of the original class (in these examples, the Record class), as they will be added to the superclass's DescendantTracker, and for long-lived code, could present a problem for garbage collection.
You could perform the validation on the Car, if the Car extends the HasWinterTires module... For example:
class Car < ActiveRecord::Base
...
validates :speed, :inclusion => { :in => 0..30 }, :if => lambda { self.singleton_class.ancestors.includes?(HasWinterTires) }
end
I think you can just do self.is_a?(HasWinterTires) instead of the singleton_class.ancestors.include?(HasWinterTires), but I haven't tested it.
Have you thought about using a Concern? So something like this should work.
module HasWinterTires
extend ActiveSupport::Concern
module ClassMethods
validates :speed, :inclusion => { :in => 0..30 }
end
end
The concern won't care that it itself has no idea what validates does.
Then I believe that you can just do instance.extend(HasWinterTires), and it should all work.
I'm writing this out from memory, so let me know if you have any issues.
You likely want something like this, which is very similar to your original attempt:
module HasWinterTires
def self.included(base)
base.class_eval do
validates :speed, :inclusion => { :in => 0..30 }
end
end
end
Then the behavior should work as expected in your example, though you need to use include instead of extend on HasWinterTires.

Refactoring ActiveRecord custom validations

I have a model called PaymentNotifications. It's used to record payments only if they are valid from Paypal. I need to check that the transaction code they give me is the same one that I get back from them after I post a form.
All of that works. What I do then is check if it's valid based on some criteria as follows:
In the controller I have the following:
tx = params[:tx]
paypal_data = get_data_from_paypal(tx)
res_hash = create_hash(paypal_data)
#payment_notification = PaymentNotification.new(:params => res_hash, :quotation_id => res_hash['invoice'],:status => res_hash["payment_status"],:transaction_id => res_hash["txn_id"])
if paypal_data["SUCCESS"] && #payment_notification.is_valid?(tx) && #payment_notification.save
redirect_to thankyou_path(:id => #payment_notification.quotation_id)
else
render '/pages/error'
end
Then in the model I run my method is_valid?
validates :params, :quotation_id, :status, :transaction_id, presence: true
validates :transaction_id, :uniqueness => true
def is_valid?(tx)
amount_paid_valid?(params["payment_gross"]) && transaction_valid?(tx) && is_quotation_unpaid?
end
def transaction_valid?(tx)
if tx != transaction_id
errors.add(:transaction_id, "This transaction is not valid")
return false
else
return true
end
end
def is_quotation_unpaid?
if quotation.unpaid?
return true
else
errors.add(:quotation_paid, "This quotation has already been paid.")
return false
end
end
def amount_paid_valid?(amount_paid)
if amount_paid.to_i == quotation.price.to_i
return true
else
errors.add(:amount_paid, "The amount paid does not match the price quoted.")
return false
end
end
NOTE: :amount_paid and :quotation_paid are not attributes. They are just keys for the error messages.
I think I'm missing the boat here as there must be a way to do this with the validations built into Rails, but I'm not so good at Rails yet. Could someone help me to refactor this so that it's easier to maintain and in line with best practices?
The main problem here is that you're reimplementing something that Rails already has -- namely, a method to check if an AR object is valid. If you use your method rather than the built-in #valid? your objects will keep passing such actions as #save and #create even when they shouldn't.
In order to bring your custom methods into the fold and include them when calling the built-in validation, just use them as custom validations in your model, like so:
validates :params, :quotation_id, :status, :transaction_id, presence: true
validates :transaction_id, :uniqueness => true
validate :amount_paid_should_match_quote, :quotation_should_be_unpaid
validates_associated :transaction
private
def amount_paid_should_match_quote
if amount.to_i != quotation.price.to_i
errors.add(:amount, "does not match the price quoted")
end
end
def quotation_should_be_unpaid
if quotation.paid?
errors.add(:quotation, "has already been paid")
end
end
A few items to pay attention to:
Validation methods shouldn't take arguments, because they're instance methods that are testing existing attributes.
Avoid referencing params in your models. Handling requests is the job of controllers.
You just need to handle the non-passing scenarios in your methods. Don't worry about returning true when objects are valid, that's up to Rails.
Don't write methods to validate associations. Just use validates_associated for that.
It helps if you rename your custom methods to be more descriptive of the actual behavior they're trying to enforce. I tried to give you a suggestion, but you can use anything you like.
You can learn more about custom validations at the Rails Guides Validations documentation.

Controlling the order of rails validations

I have a rails model which has 7 numeric attributes filled in by the user via a form.
I need to validate the presence of each of these attributes which is obviously easy using
validates :attribute1, :presence => true
validates :attribute2, :presence => true
# and so on through the attributes
However I also need to run a custom validator which takes a number of the attributes and does some calculations with them. If the result of these calculations is not within a certain range then the model should be declared invalid.
On it's own, this too is easy
validate :calculations_ok?
def calculations_ok?
errors[:base] << "Not within required range" unless within_required_range?
end
def within_required_range?
# check the calculations and return true or false here
end
However the problem is that the method "validate" always gets run before the method "validates". This means that if the user leaves one of the required fields blank, rails throws an error when it tries to do a calculation with a blank attribute.
So how can I check the presence of all the required attributes first?
I'm not sure it's guaranteed what order these validations get run in, as it might depend on how the attributes hash itself ends up ordered. You may be better off making your validate method more resilient and simply not run if some of the required data is missing. For example:
def within_required_range?
return if ([ a, b, c, d ].any?(&:blank?))
# ...
end
This will bail out if any of the variables a through d are blank, which includes nil, empty arrays or strings, and so forth.
An alternative for slightly more complex situations would be to create a helper method which runs the validations for the dependent attributes first. Then you can make your :calculations_ok? validation run conditionally.
validates :attribute1, :presence => true
validates :attribute2, :presence => true
...
validates :attribute7, :presence => true
validate :calculations_ok?, :unless => Proc.new { |a| a.dependent_attributes_valid? }
def dependent_attributes_valid?
[:attribute1, ..., :attribute7].each do |field|
self.class.validators_on(field).each { |v| v.validate(self) }
return false if self.errors.messages[field].present?
end
return true
end
I had to create something like this for a project because the validations on the dependent attributes were quite complex. My equivalent of :calculations_ok? would throw an exception if the dependent attributes didn't validate properly.
Advantages:
relatively DRY, especially if your validations are complex
ensures that your errors array reports the right failed validation instead of the macro-validation
automatically includes any additional validations on the dependent attributes you add later
Caveats:
potentially runs all validations twice
you may not want all validations to run on the dependent attributes
Check out http://railscasts.com/episodes/211-validations-in-rails-3
After implementing a custom validator, you'll simply do
validates :attribute1, :calculations_ok => true
That should solve your problem.
The James H solution makes the most sense to me. One extra thing to consider however, is that if you have conditions on the dependent validations, they need to be checked also in order for the dependent_attributes_valid? call to work.
ie.
validates :attribute1, presence: true
validates :attribute1, uniqueness: true, if: :attribute1?
validates :attribute1, numericality: true, unless: Proc.new {|r| r.attribute1.index("#") }
validates :attribute2, presence: true
...
validates :attribute7, presence: true
validate :calculations_ok?, unless: Proc.new { |a| a.dependent_attributes_valid? }
def dependent_attributes_valid?
[:attribute1, ..., :attribute7].each do |field|
self.class.validators_on(field).each do |v|
# Surely there is a better way with rails?
existing_error = v.attributes.select{|a| self.errors[a].present? }.present?
if_condition = v.options[:if]
validation_if_condition_passes = if_condition.blank?
validation_if_condition_passes ||= if_condition.class == Proc ? if_condition.call(self) : !!self.send(if_condition)
unless_condition = v.options[:unless]
validation_unless_condition_passes = unless_condition.blank?
validation_unless_condition_passes ||= unless_condition.class == Proc ? unless_condition.call(self) : !!self.send(unless_condition)
if !existing_error and validation_if_condition_passes and validation_unless_condition_passes
v.validate(self)
end
end
return false if self.errors.messages[field].present?
end
return true
end
I recall running into this issue quite some time ago, still unclear if validations order can be set and execution chain halted if a validation returns error.
I don't think Rails offers this option. It makes sense; we want to show all of the errors on the record (including those that come after a failing, due to invalid input, validation).
One possible approach is to validate only if the input to validate is present:
def within_required_range?
return unless [attribute1, attribute2, ..].all?(&:present?)
# check the calculations and return true or false here
end
Make it pretty & better structured (single responsibility) with Rails idiomatic validation options:
validates :attribute1, :presence => true
validates :attribute2, :presence => true
# and so on through the attributes
validate :calculations_ok?, if: :attributes_present?
private
def attributes_present?
[attribute1, attribute2, ..].all?(&:present?)
end
def calculations_ok?
errors[:base] << "Not within required range" unless within_required_range?
end
def within_required_range?
# check the calculations and return true or false here
end

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