Preventing a submitted hash from ActiveRecord DB store

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hi all,

I have a multi model form (Project with many tasks) and I want to prevent a task from being saved to the DB if it is empty ie. if there is no i/p for that task from the user. I tried the following

class Task < ActiveRecord::Base

before_save :check_if_empty ...

def check_if_empty     self.destroy if description.blank? end

but i get this

TypeError in ProjectsController#create can't modify frozen hash

Is there a way to let ActiveRecord know not to save a record (which is a frozen hash in this case) to the DB?

2

validates_length_of :description, :minimum => 1

3

Hi all,

I have a multi model form (Project with many tasks) and I want to prevent a task from being saved to the DB if it is empty ie. if there is no i/p for that task from the user. I tried the following

If you don't want the save to happen then you should return false from your before_save.

Fred

4

@Wolas!,

I figured a validation will do the trick but knew something simpler had to be there.

@Fred,

Dint count on it being SO simple!! :smiley: <bangin head on wall>

Thanks guys. returning "false" did the trick.

5

Hi Fred,

I had Project has_many Tasks and i had the following before_save callback on Task

  def capitalis     if (name.blank?)       false     else       self.name = name.capitalize     end   end

Now I need to make Project and Task share a HABTM relationship. I started experimenting with it after establishing the associations. Created a new Project, with some tasks in it and left on task blank. I got an ActiveRecord::RecordNotSaved error for the blank Task. Now I understand it is because of the false return in the callback. And this also cancels all following callbacks and association callbacks (?). So although the valid Tasks and the Project itself DO get saved to the DB, I get this error. Is it neat enough to rescue from this specific error in the controller and ignore it? Seems slightly hacky.. so, is there a nicer way to handle this? Thanks..