Ruby on Rails Guides: Active Record Validations and Callbacks

1 The Object Life Cycle

During the normal operation of a Rails application, objects may be created, updated, and destroyed. Active Record provides hooks into this object life cycle so that you can control your application and its data.

Validations allow you to ensure that only valid data is stored in your database. Callbacks and observers allow you to trigger logic before or after an alteration of an object’s state.

2 Validations Overview

Before you dive into the detail of validations in Rails, you should understand a bit about how validations fit into the big picture.

2.1 Why Use Validations?

Validations are used to ensure that only valid data is saved into your database. For example, it may be important to your application to ensure that every user provides a valid email address and mailing address.

There are several ways to validate data before it is saved into your database, including native database constraints, client-side validations, controller-level validations, and model-level validations.

Database constraints and/or stored procedures make the validation mechanisms database-dependent and can make testing and maintenance more difficult. However, if your database is used by other applications, it may be a good idea to use some constraints at the database level. Additionally, database-level validations can safely handle some things (such as uniqueness in heavily-used tables) that can be difficult to implement otherwise.
Client-side validations can be useful, but are generally unreliable if used alone. If they are implemented using JavaScript, they may be bypassed if JavaScript is turned off in the user’s browser. However, if combined with other techniques, client-side validation can be a convenient way to provide users with immediate feedback as they use your site.
Controller-level validations can be tempting to use, but often become unwieldy and difficult to test and maintain. Whenever possible, it’s a good idea to keep your controllers skinny, as it will make your application a pleasure to work with in the long run.
Model-level validations are the best way to ensure that only valid data is saved into your database. They are database agnostic, cannot be bypassed by end users, and are convenient to test and maintain. Rails makes them easy to use, provides built-in helpers for common needs, and allows you to create your own validation methods as well.

2.2 When Does Validation Happen?

There are two kinds of Active Record objects: those that correspond to a row inside your database and those that do not. When you create a fresh object, for example using the new method, that object does not belong to the database yet. Once you call save upon that object it will be saved into the appropriate database table. Active Record uses the new_record? instance method to determine whether an object is already in the database or not. Consider the following simple Active Record class:

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
end

We can see how it works by looking at some rails console output:

>> p = Person.new(:name => "John Doe")
=> #<Person id: nil, name: "John Doe", created_at: nil, :updated_at: nil>
>> p.new_record?
=> true
>> p.save
=> true
>> p.new_record?
=> false

Creating and saving a new record will send an SQL INSERT operation to the database. Updating an existing record will send an SQL UPDATE operation instead. Validations are typically run before these commands are sent to the database. If any validations fail, the object will be marked as invalid and Active Record will not perform the INSERT or UPDATE operation. This helps to avoid storing an invalid object in the database. You can choose to have specific validations run when an object is created, saved, or updated.

There are many ways to change the state of an object in the database. Some methods will trigger validations, but some will not. This means that it’s possible to save an object in the database in an invalid state if you aren’t careful.

The following methods trigger validations, and will save the object to the database only if the object is valid:

create
create!
save
save!
update
update_attributes
update_attributes!

The bang versions (e.g. save!) raise an exception if the record is invalid. The non-bang versions don’t: save and update_attributes return false, create and update just return the objects.

2.3 Skipping Validations

The following methods skip validations, and will save the object to the database regardless of its validity. They should be used with caution.

decrement!
decrement_counter
increment!
increment_counter
toggle!
touch
update_all
update_attribute
update_column
update_counters

Note that save also has the ability to skip validations if passed :validate => false as argument. This technique should be used with caution.

save(:validate => false)

2.4 `valid?` and `invalid?`

To verify whether or not an object is valid, Rails uses the valid? method. You can also use this method on your own. valid? triggers your validations and returns true if no errors were added to the object, and false otherwise.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :name, :presence => true
end

Person.create(:name => "John Doe").valid? # => true
Person.create(:name => nil).valid? # => false

When Active Record is performing validations, any errors found can be accessed through the errors instance method. By definition an object is valid if this collection is empty after running validations.

Note that an object instantiated with new will not report errors even if it’s technically invalid, because validations are not run when using new.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :name, :presence => true
end

>> p = Person.new
=> #<Person id: nil, name: nil>
>> p.errors
=> {}

>> p.valid?
=> false
>> p.errors
=> {:name=>["can't be blank"]}

>> p = Person.create
=> #<Person id: nil, name: nil>
>> p.errors
=> {:name=>["can't be blank"]}

>> p.save
=> false

>> p.save!
=> ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid: Validation failed: Name can't be blank

>> Person.create!
=> ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid: Validation failed: Name can't be blank

invalid? is simply the inverse of valid?. invalid? triggers your validations and returns true if any errors were added to the object, and false otherwise.

2.5 `errors[]`

To verify whether or not a particular attribute of an object is valid, you can use errors[:attribute]. It returns an array of all the errors for :attribute. If there are no errors on the specified attribute, an empty array is returned.

This method is only useful after validations have been run, because it only inspects the errors collection and does not trigger validations itself. It’s different from the ActiveRecord::Base#invalid? method explained above because it doesn’t verify the validity of the object as a whole. It only checks to see whether there are errors found on an individual attribute of the object.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :name, :presence => true
end

>> Person.new.errors[:name].any? # => false
>> Person.create.errors[:name].any? # => true

We’ll cover validation errors in greater depth in the Working with Validation Errors section. For now, let’s turn to the built-in validation helpers that Rails provides by default.

3 Validation Helpers

Active Record offers many pre-defined validation helpers that you can use directly inside your class definitions. These helpers provide common validation rules. Every time a validation fails, an error message is added to the object’s errors collection, and this message is associated with the field being validated.

Each helper accepts an arbitrary number of attribute names, so with a single line of code you can add the same kind of validation to several attributes.

All of them accept the :on and :message options, which define when the validation should be run and what message should be added to the errors collection if it fails, respectively. The :on option takes one of the values :save (the default), :create or :update. There is a default error message for each one of the validation helpers. These messages are used when the :message option isn’t specified. Let’s take a look at each one of the available helpers.

3.1 `acceptance`

Validates that a checkbox on the user interface was checked when a form was submitted. This is typically used when the user needs to agree to your application’s terms of service, confirm reading some text, or any similar concept. This validation is very specific to web applications and this ‘acceptance’ does not need to be recorded anywhere in your database (if you don’t have a field for it, the helper will just create a virtual attribute).

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :terms_of_service, :acceptance => true
end

The default error message for this helper is “must be accepted”.

It can receive an :accept option, which determines the value that will be considered acceptance. It defaults to “1” and can be easily changed.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :terms_of_service, :acceptance => { :accept => 'yes' }
end

3.2 `validates_associated`

You should use this helper when your model has associations with other models and they also need to be validated. When you try to save your object, valid? will be called upon each one of the associated objects.

class Library < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :books
  validates_associated :books
end

This validation will work with all of the association types.

Don’t use validates_associated on both ends of your associations. They would call each other in an infinite loop.

The default error message for validates_associated is “is invalid”. Note that each associated object will contain its own errors collection; errors do not bubble up to the calling model.

3.3 `confirmation`

You should use this helper when you have two text fields that should receive exactly the same content. For example, you may want to confirm an email address or a password. This validation creates a virtual attribute whose name is the name of the field that has to be confirmed with “_confirmation” appended.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :email, :confirmation => true
end

In your view template you could use something like

<%= text_field :person, :email %>
<%= text_field :person, :email_confirmation %>

This check is performed only if email_confirmation is not nil. To require confirmation, make sure to add a presence check for the confirmation attribute (we’ll take a look at presence later on this guide):

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :email, :confirmation => true
  validates :email_confirmation, :presence => true
end

The default error message for this helper is “doesn’t match confirmation”.

3.4 `exclusion`

This helper validates that the attributes’ values are not included in a given set. In fact, this set can be any enumerable object.

class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :subdomain, :exclusion => { :in => %w(www us ca jp),
    :message => "Subdomain %{value} is reserved." }
end

The exclusion helper has an option :in that receives the set of values that will not be accepted for the validated attributes. The :in option has an alias called :within that you can use for the same purpose, if you’d like to. This example uses the :message option to show how you can include the attribute’s value.

The default error message is “is reserved”.

3.5 `format`

This helper validates the attributes’ values by testing whether they match a given regular expression, which is specified using the :with option.

class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :legacy_code, :format => { :with => /\A[a-zA-Z]+\z/,
    :message => "Only letters allowed" }
end

The default error message is “is invalid”.

3.6 `inclusion`

This helper validates that the attributes’ values are included in a given set. In fact, this set can be any enumerable object.

class Coffee < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :size, :inclusion => { :in => %w(small medium large),
    :message => "%{value} is not a valid size" }
end

The inclusion helper has an option :in that receives the set of values that will be accepted. The :in option has an alias called :within that you can use for the same purpose, if you’d like to. The previous example uses the :message option to show how you can include the attribute’s value.

The default error message for this helper is “is not included in the list”.

3.7 `length`

This helper validates the length of the attributes’ values. It provides a variety of options, so you can specify length constraints in different ways:

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :name, :length => { :minimum => 2 }
  validates :bio, :length => { :maximum => 500 }
  validates :password, :length => { :in => 6..20 }
  validates :registration_number, :length => { :is => 6 }
end

The possible length constraint options are:

:minimum – The attribute cannot have less than the specified length.
:maximum – The attribute cannot have more than the specified length.
:in (or :within) – The attribute length must be included in a given interval. The value for this option must be a range.
:is – The attribute length must be equal to the given value.

The default error messages depend on the type of length validation being performed. You can personalize these messages using the :wrong_length, :too_long, and :too_short options and %{count} as a placeholder for the number corresponding to the length constraint being used. You can still use the :message option to specify an error message.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :bio, :length => { :maximum => 1000,
    :too_long => "%{count} characters is the maximum allowed" }
end

This helper counts characters by default, but you can split the value in a different way using the :tokenizer option:

class Essay < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :content, :length => {
    :minimum   => 300,
    :maximum   => 400,
    :tokenizer => lambda { |str| str.scan(/\w+/) },
    :too_short => "must have at least %{count} words",
    :too_long  => "must have at most %{count} words"
  }
end

Note that the default error messages are plural (e.g., “is too short (minimum is %{count} characters)”). For this reason, when :minimum is 1 you should provide a personalized message or use validates_presence_of instead. When :in or :within have a lower limit of 1, you should either provide a personalized message or call presence prior to length.

The size helper is an alias for length.

3.8 `numericality`

This helper validates that your attributes have only numeric values. By default, it will match an optional sign followed by an integral or floating point number. To specify that only integral numbers are allowed set :only_integer to true.

If you set :only_integer to true, then it will use the

/\A[+-]?\d+\Z/

regular expression to validate the attribute’s value. Otherwise, it will try to convert the value to a number using Float.

Note that the regular expression above allows a trailing newline character.

class Player < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :points, :numericality => true
  validates :games_played, :numericality => { :only_integer => true }
end

Besides :only_integer, this helper also accepts the following options to add constraints to acceptable values:

:greater_than – Specifies the value must be greater than the supplied value. The default error message for this option is “must be greater than %{count}”.
:greater_than_or_equal_to – Specifies the value must be greater than or equal to the supplied value. The default error message for this option is “must be greater than or equal to %{count}”.
:equal_to – Specifies the value must be equal to the supplied value. The default error message for this option is “must be equal to %{count}”.
:less_than – Specifies the value must be less than the supplied value. The default error message for this option is “must be less than %{count}”.
:less_than_or_equal_to – Specifies the value must be less than or equal the supplied value. The default error message for this option is “must be less than or equal to %{count}”.
:odd – Specifies the value must be an odd number if set to true. The default error message for this option is “must be odd”.
:even – Specifies the value must be an even number if set to true. The default error message for this option is “must be even”.

The default error message is “is not a number”.

3.9 `presence`

This helper validates that the specified attributes are not empty. It uses the blank? method to check if the value is either nil or a blank string, that is, a string that is either empty or consists of whitespace.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :name, :login, :email, :presence => true
end

If you want to be sure that an association is present, you’ll need to test whether the foreign key used to map the association is present, and not the associated object itself.

class LineItem < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :order
  validates :order_id, :presence => true
end

Since false.blank? is true, if you want to validate the presence of a boolean field you should use validates :field_name, :inclusion => { :in => [true, false] }.

The default error message is “can’t be empty”.

3.10 `uniqueness`

This helper validates that the attribute’s value is unique right before the object gets saved. It does not create a uniqueness constraint in the database, so it may happen that two different database connections create two records with the same value for a column that you intend to be unique. To avoid that, you must create a unique index in your database.

class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :email, :uniqueness => true
end

The validation happens by performing an SQL query into the model’s table, searching for an existing record with the same value in that attribute.

There is a :scope option that you can use to specify other attributes that are used to limit the uniqueness check:

class Holiday < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :name, :uniqueness => { :scope => :year,
    :message => "should happen once per year" }
end

There is also a :case_sensitive option that you can use to define whether the uniqueness constraint will be case sensitive or not. This option defaults to true.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :name, :uniqueness => { :case_sensitive => false }
end

Note that some databases are configured to perform case-insensitive searches anyway.

The default error message is “has already been taken”.

3.11 `validates_with`

This helper passes the record to a separate class for validation.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates_with GoodnessValidator
end

class GoodnessValidator < ActiveModel::Validator
  def validate(record)
    if record.first_name == "Evil"
      record.errors[:base] << "This person is evil"
    end
  end
end

The validates_with helper takes a class, or a list of classes to use for validation. There is no default error message for validates_with. You must manually add errors to the record’s errors collection in the validator class.

To implement the validate method, you must have a record parameter defined, which is the record to be validated.

Like all other validations, validates_with takes the :if, :unless and :on options. If you pass any other options, it will send those options to the validator class as options:

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates_with GoodnessValidator, :fields => [:first_name, :last_name]
end

class GoodnessValidator < ActiveModel::Validator
  def validate(record)
    if options[:fields].any?{|field| record.send(field) == "Evil" }
      record.errors[:base] << "This person is evil"
    end
  end
end

3.12 `validates_each`

This helper validates attributes against a block. It doesn’t have a predefined validation function. You should create one using a block, and every attribute passed to validates_each will be tested against it. In the following example, we don’t want names and surnames to begin with lower case.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates_each :name, :surname do |model, attr, value|
    model.errors.add(attr, 'must start with upper case') if value =~ /\A[a-z]/
  end
end

The block receives the model, the attribute’s name and the attribute’s value. You can do anything you like to check for valid data within the block. If your validation fails, you can add an error message to the model, therefore making it invalid.

4 Common Validation Options

These are common validation options:

4.1 `:allow_nil`

The :allow_nil option skips the validation when the value being validated is nil.

class Coffee < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :size, :inclusion => { :in => %w(small medium large),
    :message => "%{value} is not a valid size" }, :allow_nil => true
end

:allow_nil is ignored by the presence validator.

4.2 `:allow_blank`

The :allow_blank option is similar to the :allow_nil option. This option will let validation pass if the attribute’s value is blank?, like nil or an empty string for example.

class Topic < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :title, :length => { :is => 5 }, :allow_blank => true
end

Topic.create("title" => "").valid?  # => true
Topic.create("title" => nil).valid? # => true

:allow_blank is ignored by the presence validator.

4.3 `:message`

As you’ve already seen, the :message option lets you specify the message that will be added to the errors collection when validation fails. When this option is not used, Active Record will use the respective default error message for each validation helper.

4.4 `:on`

The :on option lets you specify when the validation should happen. The default behavior for all the built-in validation helpers is to be run on save (both when you’re creating a new record and when you’re updating it). If you want to change it, you can use :on => :create to run the validation only when a new record is created or :on => :update to run the validation only when a record is updated.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  # it will be possible to update email with a duplicated value
  validates :email, :uniqueness => true, :on => :create

  # it will be possible to create the record with a non-numerical age
  validates :age, :numericality => true, :on => :update

  # the default (validates on both create and update)
  validates :name, :presence => true, :on => :save
end

5 Conditional Validation

Sometimes it will make sense to validate an object just when a given predicate is satisfied. You can do that by using the :if and :unless options, which can take a symbol, a string or a Proc. You may use the :if option when you want to specify when the validation should happen. If you want to specify when the validation should not happen, then you may use the :unless option.

5.1 Using a Symbol with `:if` and `:unless`

You can associate the :if and :unless options with a symbol corresponding to the name of a method that will get called right before validation happens. This is the most commonly used option.

class Order < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :card_number, :presence => true, :if => :paid_with_card?

  def paid_with_card?
    payment_type == "card"
  end
end

5.2 Using a String with `:if` and `:unless`

You can also use a string that will be evaluated using eval and needs to contain valid Ruby code. You should use this option only when the string represents a really short condition.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :surname, :presence => true, :if => "name.nil?"
end

5.3 Using a Proc with `:if` and `:unless`

Finally, it’s possible to associate :if and :unless with a Proc object which will be called. Using a Proc object gives you the ability to write an inline condition instead of a separate method. This option is best suited for one-liners.

class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :password, :confirmation => true,
    :unless => Proc.new { |a| a.password.blank? }
end

5.4 Grouping conditional validations

Sometimes it is useful to have multiple validations use one condition, it can be easily achieved using with_options.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  with_options :if => :is_admin? do |admin|
    admin.validates :password, :length => { :minimum => 10 }
    admin.validates :email, :presence => true
  end
end

All validations inside of with_options block will have automatically passed the condition :if => :is_admin?

6 Performing Custom Validations

When the built-in validation helpers are not enough for your needs, you can write your own validators or validation methods as you prefer.

6.1 Custom Validators

Custom validators are classes that extend ActiveModel::Validator. These classes must implement a validate method which takes a record as an argument and performs the validation on it. The custom validator is called using the validates_with method.

class MyValidator < ActiveModel::Validator
  def validate(record)
    if record.name.starts_with? 'X'
      record.errors[:name] << 'Need a name starting with X please!'
    end
  end
end

class Person
  include ActiveModel::Validations
  validates_with MyValidator
end

The easiest way to add custom validators for validating individual attributes is with the convenient ActiveModel::EachValidator. In this case, the custom validator class must implement a validate_each method which takes three arguments: record, attribute and value which correspond to the instance, the attribute to be validated and the value of the attribute in the passed instance.

class EmailValidator < ActiveModel::EachValidator
  def validate_each(record, attribute, value)
    unless value =~ /\A([^@\s]+)@((?:[-a-z0-9]+\.)+[a-z]{2,})\z/i
      record.errors[attribute] << (options[:message] || "is not an email")
    end
  end
end

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :email, :presence => true, :email => true
end

As shown in the example, you can also combine standard validations with your own custom validators.

6.2 Custom Methods

You can also create methods that verify the state of your models and add messages to the errors collection when they are invalid. You must then register these methods by using one or more of the validate, validate_on_create or validate_on_update class methods, passing in the symbols for the validation methods’ names.

You can pass more than one symbol for each class method and the respective validations will be run in the same order as they were registered.

class Invoice < ActiveRecord::Base
  validate :expiration_date_cannot_be_in_the_past,
    :discount_cannot_be_greater_than_total_value

  def expiration_date_cannot_be_in_the_past
    if !expiration_date.blank? and expiration_date < Date.today
      errors.add(:expiration_date, "can't be in the past")
    end
  end

  def discount_cannot_be_greater_than_total_value
    if discount > total_value
      errors.add(:discount, "can't be greater than total value")
    end
  end
end

You can even create your own validation helpers and reuse them in several different models. For example, an application that manages surveys may find it useful to express that a certain field corresponds to a set of choices:

ActiveRecord::Base.class_eval do
  def self.validates_as_choice(attr_name, n, options={})
    validates attr_name, :inclusion => { {:in => 1..n}.merge(options) }
  end
end

Simply reopen ActiveRecord::Base and define a class method like that. You’d typically put this code somewhere in config/initializers. You can use this helper like this:

class Movie < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates_as_choice :rating, 5
end

7 Working with Validation Errors

In addition to the valid? and invalid? methods covered earlier, Rails provides a number of methods for working with the errors collection and inquiring about the validity of objects.

The following is a list of the most commonly used methods. Please refer to the ActiveRecord::Errors documentation for a list of all the available methods.

7.1 `errors`

Returns an OrderedHash with all errors. Each key is the attribute name and the value is an array of strings with all errors.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :name, :presence => true, :length => { :minimum => 3 }
end

person = Person.new
person.valid? # => false
person.errors
 # => {:name => ["can't be blank", "is too short (minimum is 3 characters)"]}

person = Person.new(:name => "John Doe")
person.valid? # => true
person.errors # => []

7.2 `errors[]`

errors[] is used when you want to check the error messages for a specific attribute. It returns an array of strings with all error messages for the given attribute, each string with one error message. If there are no errors related to the attribute, it returns an empty array.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :name, :presence => true, :length => { :minimum => 3 }
end

person = Person.new(:name => "John Doe")
person.valid? # => true
person.errors[:name] # => []

person = Person.new(:name => "JD")
person.valid? # => false
person.errors[:name] # => ["is too short (minimum is 3 characters)"]

person = Person.new
person.valid? # => false
person.errors[:name]
 # => ["can't be blank", "is too short (minimum is 3 characters)"]

7.3 `errors.add`

The add method lets you manually add messages that are related to particular attributes. You can use the errors.full_messages or errors.to_a methods to view the messages in the form they might be displayed to a user. Those particular messages get the attribute name prepended (and capitalized). add receives the name of the attribute you want to add the message to, and the message itself.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  def a_method_used_for_validation_purposes
    errors.add(:name, "cannot contain the characters !@#%*()_-+=")
  end
end

person = Person.create(:name => "!@#")

person.errors[:name]
 # => ["cannot contain the characters !@#%*()_-+="]

person.errors.full_messages
 # => ["Name cannot contain the characters !@#%*()_-+="]

Another way to do this is using []= setter

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
    def a_method_used_for_validation_purposes
      errors[:name] = "cannot contain the characters !@#%*()_-+="
    end
  end

  person = Person.create(:name => "!@#")

  person.errors[:name]
   # => ["cannot contain the characters !@#%*()_-+="]

  person.errors.to_a
   # => ["Name cannot contain the characters !@#%*()_-+="]

7.4 `errors[:base]`

You can add error messages that are related to the object’s state as a whole, instead of being related to a specific attribute. You can use this method when you want to say that the object is invalid, no matter the values of its attributes. Since errors[:base] is an array, you can simply add a string to the array and uses it as the error message.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  def a_method_used_for_validation_purposes
    errors[:base] << "This person is invalid because ..."
  end
end

7.5 `errors.clear`

The clear method is used when you intentionally want to clear all the messages in the errors collection. Of course, calling errors.clear upon an invalid object won’t actually make it valid: the errors collection will now be empty, but the next time you call valid? or any method that tries to save this object to the database, the validations will run again. If any of the validations fail, the errors collection will be filled again.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :name, :presence => true, :length => { :minimum => 3 }
end

person = Person.new
person.valid? # => false
person.errors[:name]
 # => ["can't be blank", "is too short (minimum is 3 characters)"]

person.errors.clear
person.errors.empty? # => true

p.save # => false

p.errors[:name]
 # => ["can't be blank", "is too short (minimum is 3 characters)"]

7.6 `errors.size`

The size method returns the total number of error messages for the object.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :name, :presence => true, :length => { :minimum => 3 }
end

person = Person.new
person.valid? # => false
person.errors.size # => 3

person = Person.new(:name => "Andrea", :email => "andrea@example.com")
person.valid? # => true
person.errors.size # => 0

8 Displaying Validation Errors in the View

Rails maintains an official plugin that provides helpers to display the error messages of your models in your view templates. You can install it as a plugin or as a Gem.

8.1 Installing as a plugin

$ rails plugin install git://github.com/joelmoss/dynamic_form.git

8.2 Installing as a Gem

Add this line in your Gemfile:

gem "dynamic_form"

Now you will have access to these two methods in your view templates.

8.3 `error_messages` and `error_messages_for`

When creating a form with the form_for helper, you can use the error_messages method on the form builder to render all failed validation messages for the current model instance.

class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :description, :value, :presence => true
  validates :value, :numericality => true, :allow_nil => true
end

<%= form_for(@product) do |f| %>
  <%= f.error_messages %>
  <p>
    <%= f.label :description %><br />
    <%= f.text_field :description %>
  </p>
  <p>
    <%= f.label :value %><br />
    <%= f.text_field :value %>
  </p>
  <p>
    <%= f.submit "Create" %>
  </p>
<% end %>

To get the idea, if you submit the form with empty fields you typically get this back, though styles are indeed missing by default:

Error messages

You can also use the error_messages_for helper to display the error messages of a model assigned to a view template. It’s very similar to the previous example and will achieve exactly the same result.

<%= error_messages_for :product %>

The displayed text for each error message will always be formed by the capitalized name of the attribute that holds the error, followed by the error message itself.

Both the form.error_messages and the error_messages_for helpers accept options that let you customize the div element that holds the messages, changing the header text, the message below the header text and the tag used for the element that defines the header.

<%= f.error_messages :header_message => "Invalid product!",
  :message => "You'll need to fix the following fields:",
  :header_tag => :h3 %>

Which results in the following content:

Customized error messages

If you pass nil to any of these options, it will get rid of the respective section of the div.

8.4 Customizing the Error Messages CSS

The selectors to customize the style of error messages are:

.field_with_errors – Style for the form fields and labels with errors.
#errorExplanation – Style for the div element with the error messages.
#errorExplanation h2 – Style for the header of the div element.
#errorExplanation p – Style for the paragraph that holds the message that appears right below the header of the div element.
#errorExplanation ul li – Style for the list items with individual error messages.

Scaffolding for example generates app/assets/stylesheets/scaffold.css.scss, which later compiles to app/assets/stylesheets/scaffold.css and defines the red-based style you saw above.

The name of the class and the id can be changed with the :class and :id options, accepted by both helpers.

8.5 Customizing the Error Messages HTML

By default, form fields with errors are displayed enclosed by a div element with the field_with_errors CSS class. However, it’s possible to override that.

The way form fields with errors are treated is defined by ActionView::Base.field_error_proc. This is a Proc that receives two parameters:

A string with the HTML tag
An instance of ActionView::Helpers::InstanceTag.

Here is a simple example where we change the Rails behavior to always display the error messages in front of each of the form fields with errors. The error messages will be enclosed by a span element with a validation-error CSS class. There will be no div element enclosing the input element, so we get rid of that red border around the text field. You can use the validation-error CSS class to style it anyway you want.

ActionView::Base.field_error_proc = Proc.new do |html_tag, instance|
  if instance.error_message.kind_of?(Array)
    %(#{html_tag}<span class="validation-error">&nbsp;
      #{instance.error_message.join(',')}</span>).html_safe
  else
    %(#{html_tag}<span class="validation-error">&nbsp;
      #{instance.error_message}</span>).html_safe
  end
end

This will result in something like the following:

Validation error messages

9 Callbacks Overview

Callbacks are methods that get called at certain moments of an object’s life cycle. With callbacks it’s possible to write code that will run whenever an Active Record object is created, saved, updated, deleted, validated, or loaded from the database.

9.1 Callback Registration

In order to use the available callbacks, you need to register them. You can do that by implementing them as ordinary methods, and then using a macro-style class method to register them as callbacks.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :login, :email, :presence => true

  before_validation :ensure_login_has_a_value

  protected
  def ensure_login_has_a_value
    if login.nil?
      self.login = email unless email.blank?
    end
  end
end

The macro-style class methods can also receive a block. Consider using this style if the code inside your block is so short that it fits in just one line.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :login, :email, :presence => true

  before_create do |user|
    user.name = user.login.capitalize if user.name.blank?
  end
end

It’s considered good practice to declare callback methods as being protected or private. If left public, they can be called from outside of the model and violate the principle of object encapsulation.

10 Available Callbacks

Here is a list with all the available Active Record callbacks, listed in the same order in which they will get called during the respective operations:

10.1 Creating an Object

before_validation
after_validation
before_save
before_create
around_create
after_create
after_save

10.2 Updating an Object

before_validation
after_validation
before_save
before_update
around_update
after_update
after_save

10.3 Destroying an Object

before_destroy
after_destroy
around_destroy

after_save runs both on create and update, but always after the more specific callbacks after_create and after_update, no matter the order in which the macro calls were executed.

10.4 `after_initialize` and `after_find`

The after_initialize callback will be called whenever an Active Record object is instantiated, either by directly using new or when a record is loaded from the database. It can be useful to avoid the need to directly override your Active Record initialize method.

The after_find callback will be called whenever Active Record loads a record from the database. after_find is called before after_initialize if both are defined.

The after_initialize and after_find callbacks have no before_* counterparts, but they can be registered just like the other Active Record callbacks.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  after_initialize do |user|
    puts "You have initialized an object!"
  end

  after_find do |user|
    puts "You have found an object!"
  end
end

>> User.new
You have initialized an object!
=> #<User id: nil>

>> User.first
You have found an object!
You have initialized an object!
=> #<User id: 1>

11 Running Callbacks

The following methods trigger callbacks:

create
create!
decrement!
destroy
destroy_all
increment!
save
save!
save(false)
toggle!
update
update_attribute
update_attributes
update_attributes!
valid?

Additionally, the after_find callback is triggered by the following finder methods:

all
first
find
find_all_by_attribute
find_by_attribute
find_by_attribute!
last

The after_initialize callback is triggered every time a new object of the class is initialized.

12 Skipping Callbacks

Just as with validations, it’s also possible to skip callbacks. These methods should be used with caution, however, because important business rules and application logic may be kept in callbacks. Bypassing them without understanding the potential implications may lead to invalid data.

decrement
decrement_counter
delete
delete_all
find_by_sql
increment
increment_counter
toggle
touch
update_column
update_all
update_counters

13 Halting Execution

As you start registering new callbacks for your models, they will be queued for execution. This queue will include all your model’s validations, the registered callbacks, and the database operation to be executed.

The whole callback chain is wrapped in a transaction. If any before callback method returns exactly false or raises an exception the execution chain gets halted and a ROLLBACK is issued; after callbacks can only accomplish that by raising an exception.

Raising an arbitrary exception may break code that expects save and friends not to fail like that. The ActiveRecord::Rollback exception is thought precisely to tell Active Record a rollback is going on. That one is internally captured but not reraised.

14 Relational Callbacks

Callbacks work through model relationships, and can even be defined by them. Let’s take an example where a user has many posts. In our example, a user’s posts should be destroyed if the user is destroyed. So, we’ll add an after_destroy callback to the User model by way of its relationship to the Post model.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :posts, :dependent => :destroy
end

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  after_destroy :log_destroy_action

  def log_destroy_action
    puts 'Post destroyed'
  end
end

>> user = User.first
=> #<User id: 1>
>> user.posts.create!
=> #<Post id: 1, user_id: 1>
>> user.destroy
Post destroyed
=> #<User id: 1>

15 Conditional Callbacks

Like in validations, we can also make our callbacks conditional, calling them only when a given predicate is satisfied. You can do that by using the :if and :unless options, which can take a symbol, a string or a Proc. You may use the :if option when you want to specify when the callback should get called. If you want to specify when the callback should not be called, then you may use the :unless option.

15.1 Using `:if` and `:unless` with a Symbol

You can associate the :if and :unless options with a symbol corresponding to the name of a method that will get called right before the callback. When using the :if option, the callback won’t be executed if the method returns false; when using the :unless option, the callback won’t be executed if the method returns true. This is the most common option. Using this form of registration it’s also possible to register several different methods that should be called to check if the callback should be executed.

class Order < ActiveRecord::Base
  before_save :normalize_card_number, :if => :paid_with_card?
end

15.2 Using `:if` and `:unless` with a String

You can also use a string that will be evaluated using eval and needs to contain valid Ruby code. You should use this option only when the string represents a really short condition.

class Order < ActiveRecord::Base
  before_save :normalize_card_number, :if => "paid_with_card?"
end

15.3 Using `:if` and `:unless` with a Proc

Finally, it’s possible to associate :if and :unless with a Proc object. This option is best suited when writing short validation methods, usually one-liners.

class Order < ActiveRecord::Base
  before_save :normalize_card_number,
    :if => Proc.new { |order| order.paid_with_card? }
end

15.4 Multiple Conditions for Callbacks

When writing conditional callbacks, it’s possible to mix both :if and :unless in the same callback declaration.

class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
  after_create :send_email_to_author, :if => :author_wants_emails?,
    :unless => Proc.new { |comment| comment.post.ignore_comments? }
end

16 Callback Classes

Sometimes the callback methods that you’ll write will be useful enough to be reused by other models. Active Record makes it possible to create classes that encapsulate the callback methods, so it becomes very easy to reuse them.

Here’s an example where we create a class with an after_destroy callback for a PictureFile model.

class PictureFileCallbacks
  def after_destroy(picture_file)
    if File.exists?(picture_file.filepath)
      File.delete(picture_file.filepath)
    end
  end
end

When declared inside a class the callback method will receive the model object as a parameter. We can now use it this way:

class PictureFile < ActiveRecord::Base
  after_destroy PictureFileCallbacks.new
end

Note that we needed to instantiate a new PictureFileCallbacks object, since we declared our callback as an instance method. Sometimes it will make more sense to have it as a class method.

class PictureFileCallbacks
  def self.after_destroy(picture_file)
    if File.exists?(picture_file.filepath)
      File.delete(picture_file.filepath)
    end
  end
end

If the callback method is declared this way, it won’t be necessary to instantiate a PictureFileCallbacks object.

class PictureFile < ActiveRecord::Base
  after_destroy PictureFileCallbacks
end

You can declare as many callbacks as you want inside your callback classes.

17 Observers

Observers are similar to callbacks, but with important differences. Whereas callbacks can pollute a model with code that isn’t directly related to its purpose, observers allow you to add the same functionality outside of a model. For example, it could be argued that a User model should not include code to send registration confirmation emails. Whenever you use callbacks with code that isn’t directly related to your model, you may want to consider creating an observer instead.

17.1 Creating Observers

For example, imagine a User model where we want to send an email every time a new user is created. Because sending emails is not directly related to our model’s purpose, we could create an observer to contain this functionality.

$ rails generate observer User

class UserObserver < ActiveRecord::Observer
  def after_create(model)
    # code to send confirmation email...
  end
end

As with callback classes, the observer’s methods receive the observed model as a parameter.

17.2 Registering Observers

Observers are conventionally placed inside of your app/models directory and registered in your application’s config/application.rb file. For example, the UserObserver above would be saved as app/models/user_observer.rb and registered in config/application.rb this way:

# Activate observers that should always be running
config.active_record.observers = :user_observer

As usual, settings in config/environments take precedence over those in config/application.rb. So, if you prefer that an observer doesn’t run in all environments, you can simply register it in a specific environment instead.

By default, Rails will simply strip “Observer” from an observer’s name to find the model it should observe. However, observers can also be used to add behavior to more than one model, and so it’s possible to manually specify the models that our observer should observe.

class MailerObserver < ActiveRecord::Observer
  observe :registration, :user

  def after_create(model)
    # code to send confirmation email...
  end
end

In this example, the after_create method would be called whenever a Registration or User was created. Note that this new MailerObserver would also need to be registered in config/application.rb in order to take effect.

# Activate observers that should always be running
config.active_record.observers = :mailer_observer

18 Transaction Callbacks

There are two additional callbacks that are triggered by the completion of a database transaction: after_commit and after_rollback. These callbacks are very similar to the after_save callback except that they don’t execute until after database changes have either been committed or rolled back. They are most useful when your active record models need to interact with external systems which are not part of the database transaction.

Consider, for example, the previous example where the PictureFile model needs to delete a file after a record is destroyed. If anything raises an exception after the after_destroy callback is called and the transaction rolls back, the file will have been deleted and the model will be left in an inconsistent state. For example, suppose that picture_file_2 in the code below is not valid and the save! method raises an error.

PictureFile.transaction do
  picture_file_1.destroy
  picture_file_2.save!
end

By using the after_commit callback we can account for this case.

class PictureFile < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessor :delete_file

  after_destroy do |picture_file|
    picture_file.delete_file = picture_file.filepath
  end

  after_commit do |picture_file|
    if picture_file.delete_file && File.exist?(picture_file.delete_file)
      File.delete(picture_file.delete_file)
      picture_file.delete_file = nil
    end
  end
end

The after_commit and after_rollback callbacks are guaranteed to be called for all models created, updated, or destroyed within a transaction block. If any exceptions are raised within one of these callbacks, they will be ignored so that they don’t interfere with the other callbacks. As such, if your callback code could raise an exception, you’ll need to rescue it and handle it appropriately within the callback.

19 Changelog

February 17, 2011: Add description of transaction callbacks.
July 20, 2010: Fixed typos and rephrased some paragraphs for clarity. Jaime Iniesta
May 24, 2010: Fixed document to validate XHTML 1.0 Strict. Jaime Iniesta
May 15, 2010: Validation Errors section updated by Emili Parreño
March 7, 2009: Callbacks revision by Trevor Turk
February 10, 2009: Observers revision by Trevor Turk
February 5, 2009: Initial revision by Trevor Turk
January 9, 2009: Initial version by Cássio Marques

Feedback

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If you see any typos or factual errors you are confident to patch, please clone docrails and push the change yourself. That branch of Rails has public write access. Commits are still reviewed, but that happens after you've submitted your contribution. docrails is cross-merged with master periodically.

You may also find incomplete content, or stuff that is not up to date. Please do add any missing documentation for master. Check the Ruby on Rails Guides Guidelines for style and conventions.

If for whatever reason you spot something to fix but cannot patch it yourself, please open an issue.

And last but not least, any kind of discussion regarding Ruby on Rails documentation is very welcome in the rubyonrails-docs mailing list.

Guides.rubyonrails.org

Active Record Validations and Callbacks

Chapters

1 The Object Life Cycle

2 Validations Overview

2.1 Why Use Validations?

2.2 When Does Validation Happen?

2.3 Skipping Validations

2.4 valid? and invalid?

2.5 errors[]

3 Validation Helpers

3.1 acceptance

3.2 validates_associated

3.3 confirmation

3.4 exclusion

3.5 format

3.6 inclusion

3.7 length

3.8 numericality

3.9 presence

3.10 uniqueness

3.11 validates_with

3.12 validates_each