Validate array name as not nil in Rails

Question

I'm newbie and and wondering if its possible to validate the presence of an array name not nil. Actually on my model I have

validates :name, presence: true

this prevents that from a web form is not possible to send the name blank, but as as soon name[] is an string_array and nil is an string, when I try to send [nil,nil] from curl it succeeds.

I found this: rails validation of presence not failing on nil and this ActiveRecord validation for nil and read the api http://edgeguides.rubyonrails.org/active_record_validations.html but I didn't found the clue.

Does anyone can help?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: with validates :name, presence: true, allow_nil: false doens't work. If I send and invalid name it succeeds. Example:

curl -X POST -d 'patient[name[]]=["Mathew","de Dios]"&patient[email][email protected]&patient[password]=123456&patient[password_confirmation]=123456&patient[sex]="female"&patient[doctor]=9' http://localhost:3000/api/patients.json

{**"success":true**,"data":{"active":null,"age":null,"created_at":"2013-08-15T11:19:03Z","dao":null,"day_active":null,"doctor_id":9,"email":"[email protected]","geo_ini":null,"id":2124,"migraine_triggers":null,**"name":[null]**,"password_digest":"$2a$10$say8LiNmnazWL/EWKBKtL.fa5pJLKe4mo8Sn.HD6w2jeUrc5vmTe2","phone":null,"remember_token":"iX4Ohuj_Z6c2mDQZ_5e2vw","rich":null,"sex":"\"female\"","updated_at":"2013-08-15T11:19:03Z"},"status":"created"}

yarakyo yarakyo · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-15T11:36:36

In the case that name is an array and that you want to check for nil elements, you can write a custom validation method. Here is an example :

validate :check_name_array_for_nil

def check_name_array_for_nil
    self.name.split(",").each do |x|
       if x.nil?
       errors.add(:name, "nil in name array")
       end
    end
end

EDIT: On second thought,this requires you to be storing the name as a string separated by commas.

Validate array name as not nil in Rails

2 Answers