Null Text Fields

I tend to allow nulls in cases where the value is unknown, even if
it’s a text/varchar field. RoR seems to push empty strings into these
fields. Is there any way to get RoR to use NULL vice ‘’ if the input
box is empty?

Thanks!

  • Ian

Ian H. wrote:

I tend to allow nulls in cases where the value is unknown, even if
it’s a text/varchar field. RoR seems to push empty strings into these
fields. Is there any way to get RoR to use NULL vice ‘’ if the input
box is empty?

Thanks!

  • Ian

I just found this problem myself. The workaround I developed was to put
the following into the model object you want this to work for:

before_validation :set_empty_to_nil

def set_empty_to_nil
self.attributes.each {|key, value|
if value.instance_of?(String) and value == ‘’
self["#{key}"] = nil
end
}
end

Basically, everytime a create or update is performed, it walks through
all the attributes, and if its type is “String” and is thus empty, I set
it to nil. (As I write this, I suppose I could have done “…
value.empty?”, but anyhoo …)

Of course, this means you have to put it into every model object you
want this behavior for, so it sort of defeats the DRY principle. There
may be a better solution (callback object?) other than modifying
ActiveRecord, but I’m not sure what that would be. I also haven’t
looked to see if this was filed as a bug or not.

Of course, part of the reason I did this as part of “before_validation”
rather than “before_save” was because I wanted to use a
“validates_uniqueness_of” and not have two empty strings declared equal.
But as it turns out, ActiveRecord won’t allow two NULLs in a database as
it considers NULL = NULL (even though it specifically performs an “…
IS NULL” search). So it was a bit of a moot point.

I can also see where a person may want ‘’ saved to the database rather
than a NULL. I’d just like the option of turning off that behavior.

Coey M. wrote:
before_validation :set_empty_to_nil

def set_empty_to_nil
self.attributes.each {|key, value|
if value.instance_of?(String) and value == ‘’
self["#{key}"] = nil
end
}
end

Of course, this means you have to put it into every model object you
want this behavior for, so it sort of defeats the DRY principle. There
may be a better solution (callback object?) other than modifying
ActiveRecord, but I’m not sure what that would be. Put this in a module
and mix in to each model you want the behavior for.

  I also haven't

looked to see if this was filed as a bug or not. This seems like things
working as advertised to me, not a bug.
If you have a form with fields left empty, those fields will still
post, they’re just empty.
And “” != nil in ruby – the first is a String object, the second is
nil.

So it’s doing exactly what you told it to.

-phil