How to validate virtual attribute in Rails? - ruby-on-rails

I have this class:
class Project < ActiveRecord::Base
validates :hourly_rate, :numericality => { :greater_than_or_equal_to => 0 },
:allow_blank => true
def hourly_rate=(number)
self.hourly_rate_in_cents = number.present? ? number.to_d * 100 : nil
end
end
Essentially, any new hourly_rate that gets entered by the user will get saved to the database as an integer.
This works quite well for numbers.
But any string that is being entered, is automatically converted into 0.0 and gets saved without any validation message!
Isn't there a way to validate this using any of Rails' validation methods?
Thanks for any help.

You can create your own validate method and use that to check for the type of object.
For example (and forgive me if there's an error in this code, since it's just off the top of my head):
validate :hourly_rate_is_integer
def hourly_rate_is_integer
errors.add(:hourly_rate, "must be Integer") unless self.hourly_rate.is_a?(Integer)
end

If you have a reader method for this that converts the other way, it will work as you expect. You've only shown the assignment method here.
def hourly_rate
self.hourly_rate_in_cents and self.hourly_rate_in_cents.to_f / 100
end
All the validation routines do is call the given method and apply tests to the result.
You might want to ensure that presence is specifically tested:
validates :hourly_rate, :presence => true, ...

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

Validate presence of one of multiple attributes in rails

In an multilingual application, a user can input their Chinese and English names. The user can input either or both, but must input at least one name.
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
validates :zh_name, :presence => true
validates :en_name, :presence => true
validates :fr_name, :presence => true
end
Since the built-in :validates_presence_of method can only validate both attributes at once, is there a way to validate the presence of at least one of many attributes in rails?
Like a magical, validates_one_of :zh_name, :en_name, :fr_name
Thank you in advance,
validate :at_least_one_name
def at_least_one_name
if [self.zh_name, self.en_name, self.fr_name].reject(&:blank?).size == 0
errors[:base] << ("Please choose at least one name - any language will do.")
end
end
Taking #micapam's answer a step futher, may I suggest:
validate :has_a_name
def has_a_name
unless [zh_name?, en_name?, fr_name?].include?(true)
errors.add :base, 'You need at least one name in some language!'
end
end
just a quick shot out, you can pass a "if" or "unless" to the validator, maybe you can get it working this way. i have something like this in mind
validates :zh_name, :presence => { :if => (fr_name.blank? && en_name.blank?) }
validate :has_a_name
def has_a_name
unless [zh_name, en_name, fr_name].any?{|val| val.present? }
errors.add :base, 'You need at least one name in some language!'
end
end
Max Williams' answer is fine, but I didn't see the need to count hits when any? returns a boolean.

validate and update single attribute rails

I have the following in my user model
attr_accessible :avatar, :email
validates_presence_of :email
has_attached_file :avatar # paperclip
validates_attachment_size :avatar,
:less_than => 1.megabyte,
:message => 'Image cannot be larger than 1MB in size',
:if => Proc.new { |imports| !imports.avatar_file_name.blank? }
in one of my controllers, I ONLY want to update and validate the avatar field without updating and validating email.
How can I do this?
for example (this won't work)
if #user.update_attributes(params[:user])
# do something...
end
I also tried with update_attribute('avatar', params[:user][:avatar]), but that would skip the validations for avatar field as well.
You could validate the attribute by hand and use update_attribute, that skips validation. If you add this to your User:
def self.valid_attribute?(attr, value)
mock = self.new(attr => value)
if mock.valid?
true
else
!mock.errors.has_key?(attr)
end
end
And then update the attribute thusly:
if(!User.valid_attribute?('avatar', params[:user][:avatar])
# Complain or whatever.
end
#user.update_attribute('avatar', params[:user][:avatar])
You should get your single attribute updated while only (manually) validating that attribute.
If you look at how Milan Novota's valid_attribute? works, you'll see that it performs the validations and then checks to see if the specific attr had issues; it doesn't matter if any of the other validations failed as valid_attribute? only looks at the validation failures for the attribute that you're interested in.
If you're going to be doing a lot of this stuff then you could add a method to User:
def update_just_this_one(attr, value)
raise "Bad #{attr}" if(!User.valid_attribute?(attr, value))
self.update_attribute(attr, value)
end
and use that to update your single attribute.
A condition?
validates_presence_of :email, :if => :email_changed?
Have you tried putting a condition on the validates_presence_of :email ?
http://ar.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Validations/ClassMethods.html#M000083
Configuration options:
if - Specifies a method, proc or string to call to determine if the validation should occur (e.g. :if => :allow_validation, or :if => Proc.new { |user| user.signup_step > 2 }). The method, proc or string should return or evaluate to a true or false value.
unless - Specifies a method, proc or string to call to determine if the validation should not occur (e.g. :unless => :skip_validation, or :unless => Proc.new { |user| user.signup_step <= 2 }). The method, proc or string should return or evaluate to a true or false value.
I am assuming you need this, because you have a multi-step wizard, where you first upload the avatar and the e-mail is filled in later.
To my knowledge, with your validations as they are, I see no good working solution. Either you validate all, or you update the avatar without validations. If it would be a simple attribute, you could check if the new value passes the validation seperately, and then update the model without validations (e.g. using update_attribute).
I can suggest two possible alternative approaches:
either you make sure that the e-mail is always entered first, which I believe is not a bad solution. And then, with each save, the validation is met.
otherwise, change the validation. Why would you declare a validation on a model, if there are records in the database that do not meet the validation? That is very counter-intuitive.
So I would propose something like this:
validate :presence_of_email_after_upload_avatar
def presence_of_email_after_upload_avatar
# write some test, when the email should be present
if avatar.present?
errors.add(:email, "Email is required") unless email.present?
end
end
Hope this helps.
Here is my solution.
It keeps the same behaviour than .valid? method, witch returns true or false, and add errors on the model on witch it was called.
class MyModel < ActiveRecord::Base
def valid_attributes?(attributes)
mock = self.class.new(self.attributes)
mock.valid?
mock.errors.to_hash.select { |attribute| attributes.include? attribute }.each do |error_key, error_messages|
error_messages.each do |error_message|
self.errors.add(error_key, error_message)
end
end
self.errors.to_hash.empty?
end
end
> my_model.valid_attributes? [:first_name, :email] # => returns true if first_name and email is valid, returns false if at least one is not valid
> my_modal.errors.messages # => now contain errors of the previous validation
{'first_name' => ["can't be blank"]}

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

Validate only when

I need to validate a value's presence, but only AFTER the value is populated. When a User is created, it is not required to set a shortcut_url. However, once the user decides to pick a shorcut_url, they cannot remove it, it must be unique, it must exist.
If I use validates_presence_of, since the shortcut_url is not defined, the User isn't created. If I use :allowblank => true, Users can then have "" as a shortcut_url, which doesn't follow the logic of the site.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Here we are always making sure the shortcut_url is unique, but we only make sure it is present if the attribute shortcut_selected is set (or if it was set and now was changed)
class Account
validates_uniqueness_of :shortcut_url
with_options :if => lambda { |o| !o.new_record? or o.shortcut_changed? } do |on_required|
on_required.validates_presence_of :shortcut_url
end
end
You'll need to test to make sure this works well with new records.
Try the :allow_nil option instead of :allow_blank. That'll prevent empty strings from validating.
Edit: Is an empty string being assigned to the shortcut_url when the user is being created, then? Maybe try:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
validates_presence_of :shortcut_url, :allow_nil => true
def shortcut_url=(value)
super(value.presence)
end
end
try conditional validations, something like:
validates_presence_of :shortcut_url, :if => :shortcut_url_already_exists?
validates_uniqueness_of :shortcut_url, :if => :shortcut_url_already_exists?
def shortcut_url_already_exists?
#shortcut_url_already_exists ||= User.find(self.id).shortcut_url.present?
end

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