Validating a form by verifying two attributes in a related table

rubyonrails-talk
1

I have a table called Contracts that includes the Name and Contact Information for all my Independent Contractors. Each Independent Contractor (IC) will have many [work] Schedules. The IC has to submit a schedule every week, but I do not want to setup a complicated authentication system that is hard to maintain. So, I'd like to have a simple form where the ICs must pick their name from a list and manually type in their own ZIP code to let the program know it is actually them submitting the form.

My question is how can I validate the form by checking that the ZIP code matches the name picked (which both reside in my contracts table) before allowing the IC to create the schedule? I would imagine I would have to create a custom 'validate' method in my Schedules model, but I'm not sure how to begin.

Cheers, Brad

2

Hi

I guess you have a model that looks like this

class Schedule < ActiveRecord::Base   ..   belongs_to :contract   .. end

First, you seem to need to add

attr_accessor :contractor_zip

so that you'll be able to put a field to enter the zip code in the form.

Then you can write your custom validation method:

def validate   errors.add(:contractor_zip, 'is invalid') unless contract.zip == contractor_zip end

I didn't test this code, but it should check whether the zip of the associated contract is equal to the zip entered in the form. I also assume that the drop down with contractor names will populate the contract_id field of the Schedule model.

Hope that helps Eugene

3

Hi Eugene,

Sorry, I could have offered more information. My tables are actually a bit more complicated than I led on, so I had to modify the validate method a little bit.

I have 3 tables: *Applicants (has_one :contract) *Contracts (belongs_to :applicant) *Schedules (belongs_to :contract)

Applicants table actually contains the ZIP code (Before they are contracted, the apply and contact information is stored in the applicants table).

I had to modify the validate method to be able to link through the contracts table to my applicants table. It seems to be working though!

  attr_accessor :contract_zip

  def validate     errors.add(:contract_zip, 'is invalid') unless contract.applicant.zip == contract_zip   end

I never really understood attr_accessor until now. Thanks SO much for your help!