Problem validating boolean

Rails
1

Hi

I’ve got a problem validating a boolean and I can’t see what the
problem is. Here’s my model:

class FinanceAgreement < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :asset

 validates_presence_of :finance_company
 validates_inclusion_of :balance, :in => 0.01..10_000_000
 validates_inclusion_of :term, :in => 1..600
 validates_numericality_of :term, :only_integer => true
 validates_inclusion_of :linked_to_residual_value_of_asset, :in

=> [true, false]
end

and here’s the RSpec code I’m using to test it:

context “A FinanceAgreement with valid attributes” do
setup do
@finance_agreement = FinanceAgreement.new(:finance_company =>
“Jigsaw Finance”, :start_date => nil,
:balance =>
5000, :term => 36, :linked_to_residual_value_of_asset => true)
end

 aspect "validation" do
   specify "should be valid" do
     @finance_agreement.should be_valid
   end

   specify "should be invalid if

linked_to_residual_value_of_asset is not true or false" do
@finance_agreement.linked_to_residual_value_of_asset = true
@finance_agreement.should be_valid

     @finance_agreement.linked_to_residual_value_of_asset = false
     @finance_agreement.should be_valid

     @finance_agreement.linked_to_residual_value_of_asset = 1
     @finance_agreement.should_not be_valid
   end
 end

end

The first two expectations (true and false should be valid values)
pass but it fails on this error:

should be invalid if linked_to_residual_value_of_asset is not true
or false
expected valid? to return false, got true

/Users/ashleymoran/Documents/Development/YourMoney/trunk/src/spec/
models/finance_agreement_spec.rb:65:

(I cut some specs out, line 65 is “@finance_agreement.should_not
be_valid”)

Any idea why 1 makes the model valid? The only thing I can find that
makes it (correctly) invalid is nil.

Thanks
Ashley

2

Well, I would say it’s probably because in a lot of programming
languages
(and in a MySQL database), a 1 counts as true and a 0, false. Ruby is
strongly typed, so it normally doesn’t automatically convert things so
easily, but I expect rails is configured to convert numbers to boolean
because it has to accept values from databases which may not have
strictly
boolean objects. There’s not a lot you can do about it. You could work
something into before_validation or after_validation, it’s not worth it
IMO.
Just re-write your tests.

3

On 5/1/07, Ashley M. [email protected] wrote:

Any idea why 1 makes the model valid? The only thing I can find that
makes it (correctly) invalid is nil.

Hi Ashley,

ActiveRecord casts the values when you pull them out via the normal
readers. So, if you have a class Flag with a boolean attribute #value:

flag.value = ‘1’
=> “1”
flag.value
=> true
flag.value = ‘Wibble.’
=> “Wibble.”
flag.value
=> false

In rails 1.2.3, a `value’ is converted to a boolean by:

%w(true t 1).include?(value.to_s.downcase)

If you want the value before it’s been cast, you can append
“_before_type_cast” to the accessor name:

flag.value = ‘Wibble.’
=> “Wibble.”
flag.value_before_type_cast
=> “Wibble.”

Not sure how useful that is to test, really, though.

Regards,
George.