Entries from August 2009 ↓

Sexy Validations in Rails 3.0

August 16th, 2009 — Rails, Ruby

Update: This patch has been applied but this information is out of date, please see: this new post.

Having had a patch accepted in Rails, I now have the bug (not a bug… the bug for writing patches… anyway).

I have just added this patch to allow for “sexy-migration-esque” validations using the new ActiveModel. Below explains the gist of it:

  class EmailValidator < ActiveRecord::Validator
    def validate
      field = options[:attr]
      record.errors[field] << "is not valid"
        unless record.send(field) =~ /^([^@\s]+)@((?:[-a-z0-9]+\.)+[a-z]{2,})$/i
    end
  end
 
  # Register the custom validator in an initializer file.
  ActiveModel::Validations.register_validator :email, EmailValidator
 
  class Person < ActiveModel::Base
    attr_accessor :name, :email
 
    validates :name, :presence => true, :uniqueness => true, :length => { :maximum => 100 }
    validates :email, :presence => true, :email => true
  end

As with the previous patch I believe this adds even more flexibility which is what Rails 3 is all about. It also allows validators to be shared more easily.

Rails defaults can now also be overridden e.g.

  class RequiredValidator < ActiveRecord::Validator
    def validate
      field = options[:attr]
      record.errors[field] << "Required" if record.send(field).blank?
    end
  end
 
  ActiveModel::Validations.register_validator :email, RequiredValidator

I would appreciate a +1 on the ticket from anyone who feels this should be in Rails 3.0.

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