rails before_save callback does not trigger - ruby-on-rails

Question

In my rails app, I want to check an amount sent via a form before saving it to the DB. If the amount is too big, I want to set a boolean variable "confirmed" to false. Otherwise, its confirmed and true.
I entered this in my model:
# if amount is too big, set to unconfirmed
before_save do
if self.amount > 9999
self.confirmed = false
else
self.confirmed = true
end
end
Controller action (was scaffolded):
def create
#statement = Statement.new(statement_params)
respond_to do |format|
if #statement.save
format.html { redirect_to thankyou_path, notice: 'Successfully created.' }
format.json { render action: 'show', status: :created, location: #statement }
else
format.html { render action: 'new' }
format.json { render json: #statement.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
Testing this results in the following:
- if the amount is < 9999, the form gets saved, all good.
- if the amount is > 9999, the form does not get saved. It simply stays on the same page and nothing happens. No error message and nothing to see in the log except the fact that the data did not get entered into the database.
What do I do wrong?

Answer 1

It's because if amount is greater than 9999, the value returned from block is false (from self.confirmed = false line) - and if block (or method) passed into before_save returns false, ActiveRecord stops saving the record. So the simple solution is to add true that would be returned:
before_save do
if self.amount > 9999
self.confirmed = false
else
self.confirmed = true
end
true
end
The relevant piece of documentation for reference:
If a before_* callback returns false, all the later callbacks and the associated action are cancelled. If an after_* callback returns false, all the later callbacks are cancelled. Callbacks are generally run in the order they are defined, with the exception of callbacks defined as methods on the model, which are called last.
http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Callbacks.html#module-ActiveRecord::Callbacks-label-Canceling+callbacks