errors.add, setting the whole message

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hi all. I have an attribute, job_role_id_short, that is being set in a form. This field has a custom validation on it, which does this if it fails:

  self.errors.add(:job_role_id_short, "cannot be blank")

I want to add the error onto the attribute, so that the form builder will wrap the field in a fieldWithErrors div. However, the error it generates says "Job Role Short cannot be blank". I'd like it to say "Job cannot be blank".

Is there a way of adding an error to a specific attribute that will let me set the whole error message, not just the last part of it?

thanks, max

2

If you're using I18n (which I think is always a good idea, even if you're only using one language) you can do two things:

1. Define a translation for the job_role_id_short attribute:

In app_root/config/locales/en.yml:

en:     activerecord:         attributes:             my_model:                 job_role_id_short: "Job"

This will not only fix "Job Role Short" in the error message but anywhere else where Rails tries to convert that attribute in a human readable string. If you dont want this, go for the alternative:

2. Override the default error message for this kind of error on this particular attribute (Also see documentation for generate_full_message (ActiveRecord::Error) - APIdock):

In app_root/config/locales/en.yml:

en:     activerecord:         errors:             full_messages:                 job_role_id_short:                     blank: "Job cannot be blank"

3

Sjoerd Andringa wrote in post #943536:

2. Override the default error message for this kind of error on this particular attribute (Also see documentation for generate_full_message (ActiveRecord::Error) - APIdock):

In app_root/config/locales/en.yml:

en:     activerecord:         errors:             full_messages:                 job_role_id_short:                     blank: "Job cannot be blank"

Thanks Sjoerd but i can't get this working: i put this in my config/locales/en.yml file:

en: ... ...   activerecord:     errors:       full_messages:         password:           blank: "Something about the password being missing"           invalid: "Something about the password not being valid"

Then in my controller, i do

      @user_session.errors.add(:password) #use default of :invalid

And i get "Password is invalid" back. This is in rails 2.3.4.

thanks, max

4

It seems this feature has been added in 2.3.5 (http://github.com/rails/rails/blob/v2.3.5/activerecord/lib/active_record/validations.rb#L108). I'd recommend upgrading as Im not aware of an easy alternative way of doing this.

5

Sjoerd Andringa wrote in post #949766:

It seems this feature has been added in 2.3.5

(http://github.com/rails/rails/blob/v2.3.5/activerecord/lib/active_record/validations.rb#L108).

I'd recommend upgrading as Im not aware of an easy alternative way of doing this.

Thanks Sjoerd, i might upgrade if needs be. I've been looking in ./vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/locale/en.yml though and it looks like i should be able to change the basic format for all error messages: it has this line

en:   activerecord:     errors:       full_messages:         format: "{{attribute}} {{message}}"

Which i thought would mean i could change it to

        format: "{{message}}"

which would globally remove the attribute name from the start of all errors, which is fine as i can add it back in on an attribute-by-attribute basis or stick with custom messages for everything.

But, it doesn't work. I'll keep hacking away...

cheers, max

6

Here you can see how the 'full_messages.format' scope is applied: http://github.com/rails/rails/blob/v2.3.4/activerecord/lib/active_record/validations.rb#L118 Maybe it'll give you some insight in why it's not working. Perhaps I18n.t's :default option is overridden? Good luck!

7

Sjoerd Andringa wrote in post #949781:

Perhaps I18n.t's :default option is overridden?

Forget about that, it merges the default scope into the options hash so it always takes precedence.

8

Sjoerd Andringa wrote in post #949781:

Here you can see how the 'full_messages.format' scope is applied:

Maybe it'll give you some insight in why it's not working. Perhaps I18n.t's :default option is overridden? Good luck!

I figured it out, it's not to do with I18n at all as it happens. It was because i'd overriden the ActionView::Base.field_error_proc method to wrap my errored fields in some different markup to the default, and this was pulling in the attribute name and the error message. So, the error message was right all along, it was my markup generator that was wrong. In case anyone's interested, this is what i have now:

#override the logic/html for wrapping fields in fieldWithErrors divs in form_for ActionView::Base.field_error_proc = Proc.new do |html_tag, instance|   if html_tag =~ /^\<label\s/     html_tag   else     error_message = instance.error_message.collect{|m| "#{m}"}.join(", ")     "<div class=\"fieldWithErrors\"><div class='errorMessage'>#{error_message}</div>#{html_tag}</div>"   end end

Thanks for all your help Sjoerd max