datetime field inserted is NULL

rubyonrails-talk
1

This is pretty baffling. I have the following model object:

create_table "activities", :force => true do |t|   t.integer "user_id", :limit => 11   t.datetime "created_at"   t.datetime "updated_at"   t.integer "location_id", :limit => 11   t.datetime "event_date" end

model/activity.rb:

class Activity < ActiveRecord::Base

belongs_to :User belongs_to :Location

attr_accessor :event_date attr_accessor :user attr_accessor :location

end

my activities_controller.rb:

  activity = Activity.new(params[:activity])

  activity.event_date = Date.today

  activity.user_id = current_user.id

  activity.save

It throws an error b/c it's trying to insert NULL for event_date in the MYSQL database: ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid (Mysql::Error: Column 'event_date' cannot be null: INSERT INTO `activities` (`update\ d_at`, `location_id`, `user_id`, `event_date`, `created_at`) VALUES('2008-07-30 05:16:00', 1, 1, NULL, '2008-07-30 \ 05:16:00')):

I have no idea why. If I explicitly print out 'activity.event_date.to_s' is gives me the date of today.

If I remove the stipulation the "event_date" can be NULL it just insert a NULL value.

thanks in advance for help

2

Hi Allen,

Allen Walker wrote:

This is pretty baffling. I have the following model object:

create_table "activities", :force => true do |t|   t.integer "user_id", :limit => 11   t.datetime "created_at"   t.datetime "updated_at"   t.integer "location_id", :limit => 11   t.datetime "event_date" end

model/activity.rb:

class Activity < ActiveRecord::Base

belongs_to :User belongs_to :Location

attr_accessor :event_date attr_accessor :user attr_accessor :location

end

This is definitely just a guess, but I've never seen attr_accessor used on an ActiveRecord::Base object coming from an MySQL table. I'd speculate that it may be overriding AR's behavior somehow, but that's definitely just a guess. What happens if you delete that line from your model?

Bill

3

Looks like it fixed a few things. Yes I was confused in using the "attr_*" declaration on an ActiveRecord::Base. Sometimes I wished rails would throw a warning of some kind.

Thanks

Bill Walton wrote:

4

You're trying to set a datetime field to a Date object whereas Rails would expect a Time object (like Time.now).

You already know you don't need to (and shouldn't) make attr_* declarations for your model's fields.

You also are using capitalized :User and :Location for your belongs_to. This will fail. They should be lowercase. Also, if a user has many activities you can say @activity = current_user.activities.build(params[:activity]) and not have to set the user_id manually.

I'm also not certain why you need a not null constraint in the database. Better to use a validates_presence_of :event_date in the model.

Rein Henrichs Hashrocket