save! not allowed after validates_uniqueness

rubyonrails-talk
1

Can you please explain why you think the validation should be "skipped"?

Cheers, Nicholas

2

Hi Nicholas,

Thanks for your response. What I meant was that validation should not compare the object that is being updated against its own existing copy. For example, I am editting an existing object:

   [:aspect => "Aspect-A", :user_id => 5, :third_field => "morning"].

Now, the object is unique in the database according to

   validates_uniqueness_of :aspect, :scope => :user_id

That's all good. However, when I update the object with the following statements:

   self.third_field = "night"    save!

Rails returns an error:

   ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid: Validation failed: Aspect has already been taken

Why? I am just trying to update an existing object, not create a new one that would violate the uniqueness validation.

Thanks.

3

What code are you using for creating and modifying the object before saving it?

Colin

4

Hi Colin,

Thanks for asking that question. I had preloaded the database so I didn't have to create a new record. So now I just tried doing that and it wouldn't let me create a new record although the :aspect value I used does not exist at all in the database. Console output is below:

stat0 = Stat.new(:user => user0, :aspect => "aspect0")

=> #<Stat id: nil, user_id: 1000, aspect: "aspect0", . . .>

stat0.save!

ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid: Validation failed: Aspect has already been taken   from /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.2/lib/active_record/validations.rb:1021:in `save_without_dirty!'   from /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.2/lib/active_record/dirty.rb:87:in `save_without_transactions!'   from /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.2/lib/active_record/transactions.rb:200:in `save!'   from /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.2/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/database_statements.rb:136:in `transaction'   from /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.2/lib/active_record/transactions.rb:182:in `transaction'   from /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.2/lib/active_record/transactions.rb:200:in `save!'   from /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.2/lib/active_record/transactions.rb:208:in `rollback_active_record_state!'   from /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.2/lib/active_record/transactions.rb:200:in `save!'   from (irb):70

"aspect0" is something I completely made up and does not exist in the database. :user_id 1000 does exist in different rows with different values of :aspect however.