CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsregexvalidationruby-on-rails-3
Misha Moroshko
Misha Moroshko

Reputation: 171321

Rails: Why "format" (regex) validation fails?

I have the following validation of product's price:

class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
    ...
    PRICE_REGEX = /^([1-9]\d{0,5}|0)(\.\d{1,2})?$/
    validates :price, :presence => true, :format => PRICE_REGEX
    ...
end

It supposed to allow prices from 0 to 999999.99.

However, if I enter hello, the validation passes, and 0.00 is saved in the database.

The :presence validation works fine, though.

What am I missing here ?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1549

Answers (2)

vonconrad
vonconrad

Reputation: 25377

The price column is a float, and so Rails will automatically convert the string "hello" to float, as per "hello".to_f # => 0.0. This is then converted back to the string "0.0", which obviously matches the regular expression.

In general, it's a bad idea to use regular expressions on non-string columns. Instead, use validates_numericality_of. If you wanted the same restriction as with the regex, do it like this:

class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates_numericality_of :price, :greater_than => 0, :less_than => 1000000
end

Not only is it safer, but it's easier to read and follow as well. Note that it'll automatically reject the price if blank as well.

Upvotes: 5

nunopolonia
nunopolonia

Reputation: 14417

I haven't tested this, but every description I saw from validates uses :format in this way:

validates :price, :presence => true, :format => { :with => PRICE_REGEX }

Maybe the problem is there

Upvotes: 0

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