# Date validations

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/date-validations/88840>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [March 14, 2007, 10:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/date-validations/88840 "2007-03-14T22:23:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![wpwood](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/d6d6ee/32.png) [@wpwood](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wpwood)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2007, 10:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/date-validations/88840/1 "2007-03-14T22:23:26Z")

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I’m looking for some experienced assessments of how / whether I need to  
bother to validate dates in my Rails app. I’ve Googled the topic but  
what I’m finding doesn’t tell me what I want to know.

I’m not concerned with visitors entering invalid dates while they’re  
using my app. All dates are entered via selects. Also, the app doesn’t  
contain any date processing / calculations.

What I’m looking to guard against is hackers who might try to corrupt  
the database using a means of access other than the app. I’ve got  
length and format validations on all the string fields, and numericality  
validations on all the int fields. But I can’t get my arms around how  
or even if I need to validate the date / datetime fields. Again, I  
don’t care if whatever they might try to feed the db (MySQL) gets turned  
into 0000-00-00 or whatever. I just want to ensure that they’re not  
able to corrupt the db, create a buffer overrun, etc.

Thanks much for any advice.

Best regards,  
Bill