I have a situation where User has_one :address and Address belongs_to :user.
I need to be able to validate the address object in these cases:
After a user has signed up, he has an option to partly fill in the address form. In this state I would like to validate for example validates :phone_number, :postal_code, numericality: true but the user can leave the field blank if he wants to.
When user is making a purchase he has to complete the address form. And all the fields have to be validated by validates presence: true + previous validations.
I understand that one approach would be to attach another parameter to the form (i.e.full_validation) and then add a custom validation method that would check for this parameter and then fully validate all attributes.
I was just wondering is there a more code efficient and easier way to do this.
So far I have only found ways to validate some attributes (seethis blog post) but I have not yet found suggestions on how to invoke part of the validation process for certain attributes.
Any help/suggestions will be appreciated :)
#app/models/user.rb
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :address, inverse_of: :user
end
#app/models/address.rb
class Address < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user, inverse_of: :address
validates :phone_number, :postal_code, numericality: true, if: ["phone_number.present?", "postal_code.present?"]
validates :x, :y, :z, presence: true, unless: "user.new_record?"
end
--
After a user has signed up
Use if to determine if the phone_number or postal_code are present.
This will only validate their numericality if they exist in the submitted data. Whether the User is new doesn't matter.
--
When user is making a purchase
To make a purchase, I presume a User has to have been created (otherwise he cannot purchase). I used the user.new_record? method to determine whether the user is a new record or not.
Ultimately, both my & #odaata's answers allude to the use of conditional evaluation (if / unless) to determine whether certain attributes / credentials warrant validation.
The docs cover the issue in depth; I included inverse_of because it gives you access to the associative objects (allowing you to call user.x in Address).
If you give more context on how you're managing the purchase flow, I'll be able to provide better conditional logic for it.
For your first use case, you can use the :allow_blank option on validates to allow the field to be blank, i.e. only validate the field if it is not blank?.
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/active_record_validations.html#allow-blank
For both use cases, you can tell Rails exactly when to fire the validations using the :if/:unless options. This is known as Conditional Validation:
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/active_record_validations.html#conditional-validation
For Address, you might try something like this:
class Address
belongs_to :user
validates :phone_number, :postal_code, numericality: true, allow_blank: true, if: new_user?
def new_user?
user && user.new_record?
end
end
This gives you an example for your first use case. As for the second, you'll want to use conditional validation on User to make sure an address is present when the person makes a purchase. How this is handled depends on your situation: You could set a flag on User or have that flag check some aspect of User, e.g. the presence of any purchases for a given user.
class User
has_one :address
has_many :purchases
validates :address, presence: true, if: has_purchases?
def has_purchases?
purchases.exists?
end
end
Related
I am trying to introduce a functionality in my application in which the users can suggest an event to the organizers.To suggest an event the user will have to fill a form. I want to validate the presence of few fields(the attribute of the events) with a condition to be true, i.e. the fields should not be left blank if the user(the submitter of the form) is not an admin.However if the submitter of the form is an admin, the fields can be left blank.
validates :attribute_name, presence: { :if => :user.is_admin? }
undefined method `is_admin?' for :user:Symbol Did you mean? is_haml?
I have also tried :user.is_admin()==True , It also throws error:
undefined method `is_admin' for :user:Symbol Did you mean? is_a?
I have this attribute in the users table:
t.boolean "is_admin", default: false
I have the following associations defined in my events model:
has_many :event_users, dependent: :destroy
has_many :users, through: :event_users
has_one :submitter_event_user, -> { where(event_role: 'submitter') }, class_name: 'EventUser'
has_one :submitter, through: :submitter_event_user, source: :user
In the controllers I have this code:
#event.submitter = current_user
The issue is you are trying to call is_admin? on the Symbol :user as the error suggests.
If I understand correctly this attribute should be present unless user.is_admin? returns true
This can be done in multiple ways:
validates :attribute_name, presence: true, unless: -> {|u| u.is_admin?}
#Or
validates :attribute_name, presence: true, unless: :is_admin?
# or using presence directly as you tried to originally
validates :attribute_name, presence: {unless: -> {|u| u.is_admin?} }
# or
validates :attribute_name, presence: {unless: :is_admin? }
I generally prefer the first option as, IMO, it is the least ambiguous and the most readable but all of them should result in the same function so choose the one you prefer as long as you remain consistent.
In the block form the instance is yielded to the block and the block's return value is used to determine whether or not the validation should run.
When using the symbol the symbol is sent to the instance via the send message transmission e.g. self.send(:is_admin? and again the return value is used to determine if the validation should be applied
ActiveModel::Validations::ClassMethods#validates
Update based on revised question:
Since the Event is related to the User via submitter and this is already being set to the instance of a User you can validate in a very similar fashion via
validates :attribute_name, presence: true,
unless: ->(event) { event.submitter&.is_admin?}
Or make a separate method such as
def admin_submitter?
self.submitter&.is_admin?
end
validates :attribute_name, presence: {unless: :admin_submitter?}
I have a model user that has_one business
At certain times I want to validate user on its own without taking into account business.
At the moment if
user.business.valid? is false
this will make user.valid? also false even if the user record on its own is valid.
If in user.rb I do has_one :business, :validate => false it will not take business into account when validating user, but it will then always do it, which is what I dont want.
What is the syntax to call the validation on user without taking the business association into account?
If I do user.business(validate: false).valid? it will ignore the validation on business and user. The above will be true even if user is invalid.
Any ideas?
Update:
Validations:
user.rb
validates :first_name, presence: true
business.rb
validates :name, presence: true
Using rails5.0.0.rc1
I'm building a quick Rails project that allows users to manage their email addresses. Users can have many emails, but one (and only one) of those emails has to be marked as 'primary' (for login), and a user cannot exist without a primary email.
I've been struggling to get this to work right - it seems so circular to me. I need to build a User, and then the Email, but I don't want to save the User into the database unless the Email is valid, which it won't be until the User is saved (because of the validates :user, presence: true constraint).
Accepts nested resources for doesn't seem to work with .new (works fine with .create), and if my Email fails its validations, the User still shows as valid.
Been having a difficult time trying to find good resources (or SO questions) for building/validating multiple/dependent models from a single form.
What's the most Rails way to do this?
User
has_many :emails
has_one :primary_email, -> { where(primary: true) }, class_name: "Email"
accepts_nested_attributes_for :primary_email
validates :first_name, presence: true
validates :last_name, presence: true
validates :birthday, presence: true
validates :password_digest, presence: true
Email
belongs_to :user
validates :user, presence: true
validates :address, presence: true, uniqueness: {
case_sensitive: false
}
UsersController
def new
#user = User.new
end
def create
#user = User.new(user_params)
if #user.save
# do something
else
# show #user.errors
end
end
private
def user_params
params.require(:user).permit(
:first_name,
:last_name,
:birthday,
:password,
:password_confirmation,
:primary_email_attributes => [:address]
)
end
EDIT
The Email model also contains the following fields:
label = string, eg. 'Personal', 'Work', etc
primary = boolean, whether it's marked as primary email or not
confirmation_code = autogenerated on creation, used to confirm ownership
confirmed = boolean, whether it's been confirmed or not
class User
user has_many :emails
user has_one :primary_email, -> { where(primary: true) }, class_name: "Email", autosave: true
after_initialize {
build_primary_email if new_record?
}
end
class Email
# use gem https://github.com/balexand/email_validator
validates :my_email_attribute, :email => true
end
So after a user initialized its building a primary_email so that record is already associated, or at least it will be if it can be saved. the autosave is working pretty cool - if the primary-email can't be saved due validation error, the user can't neither. should work out of the box, im in a bus right now, can't check it. cheers
futher information: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/AutosaveAssociation.html
If validations for any of the associations fail, their error messages will be applied to the parent. That means, the Parent Model (in your case User) is having errors, and thats why the saving is not possible! that's what you are looking for.
I would store a primary email as a common field and additional emails some another way. I would prefer to store additional emails in another field too that is Array rather than in an associated table. You shouldn't store a primary email in another table. Just imagine, every time you need authorize user or just get his email you will perform an extra request to db.
Meant to post this months ago.
The solution, keeping users and emails normalized across different models without storing a primary email as an attribute on the user, is to use inverse_of:
User.rb
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :emails, inverse_of: :user, dependent: :destroy
accepts_nested_attributes_for :emails
validates :emails, presence: true
end
Email.rb
class Email < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user, inverse_of: :emails
validates :user, presence: true
end
This allows validations to be performed using in-memory objects, rather than via database calls (ie the object associations are being validated, rather than the presence of an id/record in the database). Therefore they both pass validation and can both be saved in the same transaction.
See: https://viget.com/extend/exploring-the-inverse-of-option-on-rails-model-associations
Suppose I have an ActiveRecord association like:
class City < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :state
end
A city without a state should be invalid. It seems that both of these are possible validations:
validates :state, presence: true
# OR
validates :state_id, presence: true
I would guess that they are identical, since:
belongs_to creates methods state and state=
state= sets the state_id
However, I've just fixed a failing spec by changing it to check for the id instead of the object.
Are these two ways of validating both acceptable? If so, when would you use one or the other?
validates :state will use the relationship from city to state (the belongs_to) along with the foreign key whereas validates :state_id alone will just use the column state_id and see if it has any value at all.
My preferred method is to validate state (the relationship) as this requires both the key and the relationship to be present.
Validating state_id will work, in that it will make sure that a state id exists, however it won't check for the validity of the code, i.e. that a state actually 'exists' for any given state key in City.
Basically if the foreign keys (for state_id) used in City all exist as actual records in State, the effect is the same. The difference would show if you had an invalid state code in state.
What if you did something like
s = State.new
c = City.new
c.state = s
c.valid?
I haven't tried this but I'm guessing that, if you're checking for the presence of c.state_id, it will be missing, even though c does have a state (because the ID hasn't been generated yet, because the state hasn't been saved yet).
That is to say, if what you care about is the presence of the state, you should validate the presence of the state.
Personally, I prefer to allow the model to be more robust and accept either or. So in your particular situation, City could accept either a State object or a state_id, but is required to send one of them.
class City < ActiveRecord::Base
attr_accessible :state, :state_id
validates :state, presence: true, if: proc{|c| c.state_id.blank? }
validates :state_id, presence: true, if: proc{|c| c.state.blank? }
belongs_to :state
end
Edit: Removed the double negative in the validate statement. Originally had unless: proc{|c| !c.state_id.blank? }
According to Rails 4 Way by Obie Fernandez:
When you're trying to ensure that an association is present, pass its
foreign key attribute, not the association variable itself
validates :region_id, :presence => true
validate :region_exists
def region_exists
errors.add(:region_id, "does not exist") unless Region.exists?(region_id)
end
The book does not explain why you should use this as opposed to
validates :region, :presence => true
But I know that these guys know their stuff.
Can anyone figure out what's going on here? I was able to get my code to work the way I want it to, but I can't figure out why validates_associated isn't working as I expect. Here's a snippet of my code:
class Flag < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :post
# allow only one flag per post per user
validates_uniqueness_of :user_id, :scope => :post_id
validates :user_id, :post_id, :presence => true
validates_associated :user, :post
attr_accessible :user_id, :post_id
end
With this code I can't save a flag with user_id == nil. I can save a flag with user_id == 12345 (i.e. some user_id not in the database). This is what the validates_associated API specification says:
validates_associated(*attr_names)
Validates whether the associated object or objects are all valid themselves. Works with any kind of association.
...
NOTE: This validation will not fail if the association hasn’t been assigned. If you want to ensure that the association is both present and guaranteed to be valid, you also need to use validates_presence_of.
I was able to get the desired behavior by using this, instead:
validates :user, :post, :presence => true
My understanding of the API specification is that validates_associated checks the associated table to see if a row exists with an id matching the foreign key of Flag provided the foreign key is non-nil. Can anyone offer any insight on this? Am I misunderstanding how validates_associated is supposed to work?
validates_associated simply runs the validations that are specified within the associated object's class, it does nothing in regard to foreign keys.
validates :user_id, :presence=>true ensures the presence of a user_id in your flag record, but that's all.
validates :user, :presence=>true is used on the association itself and ensures that foreign keys are properly set up.
Man... all I got was that validates_presence_of is needed for this to work as you got from the API. Seem's overkill to be checking for association validness, but I'm a noob.