How do I validate a date in rails

Question

I want to validate a date in my model in Ruby on Rails  however  the day  month and year values are already converted into an incorrect date by the time they reach my model   For example  if I enter February 31st 2009 in my view  when I use Model new params  model   in my controller  it converts it to  March 3rd 2009   which my model then sees as a valid date  which it is  but it is incorrect   I would like to be able to do this validation in my model  Is there any way that I can  or am I going about this completely wrong   I found this  Date validation  that discusses the problem but it never was resolved

User · Accepted Answer

I m guessing you re using the date select helper to generate the tags for the date  Another way you could do it is to use select form helper for the day  month  year fields  Like this  example I used is the created at date field     lt    f select  month   1  12  to a  selected   user created at month   gt   lt    f select  day   1  31  to a  selected   user created at day   gt   lt    f select  year    Time now year - 20   Time now year  to a  selected   user created at year   gt    And in the model  you validate the date   attr accessor  month   day   year validate  validate created at  private  def convert created at   begin     self created at   Date civil self year to i  self month to i  self day to i    rescue ArgumentError     false   end end  def validate created at   errors add  Created at date    is invalid    unless convert created at end   If you re looking for a plugin solution  I d checkout the validates timeliness plugin  It works like this  from the github page    class Person  lt  ActiveRecord  Base   validates date  date of birth  on or before  lambda   Date current       or   validates  date of birth  timeliness    on or before  lambda   Date current    type   date   end    The list of validation methods available are as follows   validates date     - validate value as date validates time     - validate value as time only i e   12 20pm  validates datetime - validate value as a full date and time validates          - use the  timeliness key and set the type in the hash

User · Answer

If you want Rails 3 or Ruby 1 9 compatibility try the date validator gem

User · Answer

Since you need to handle the date string before it is converted to a date in your model  I d override the accessor for that field  Let s say your date field is published date  Add this to your model object   def published date  value        do sanity checking here       then hand it back to rails to convert and store     self write attribute  published date  value   end

User · Answer

You can validate the date and time like so  in a method somewhere in your controller with access to your params if you are using custom selects         Set parameters year   params  date   year  to i month   params  date   month  to i mday   params  date   mday  to i hour   params  date   hour  to i minute   params  date   minute  to i    Validate date  time and hour valid date      Date valid date  year  month  mday valid hour       0  23  to a include  hour valid minute     0  59  to a include  minute valid time      valid hour  amp  amp  valid minute    Check if parameters are valid and generate appropriate date if valid date  amp  amp  valid time   second   0   offset    0    DateTime civil year  month  mday  hour  minute  second  offset  else     Some fallback if you want like       DateTime current utc end

User · Answer

A bit late here  but thanks to  How do I validate a date in rails   I managed to write this validator  hope is useful to somebody   Inside your model rb  validate  date field must be a date or blank    If your field is called  date field  use  date field before type cast def date field must be a date or blank   date field before type cast to date rescue ArgumentError   errors add  birthday   invalid  end

User · Answer

Here s a non-chronic answer    class Pimping  lt  ActiveRecord  Base  validate  valid date   def valid date    if scheduled on present      unless scheduled on is a  Time        errors add  scheduled on   Is an invalid date        end   end end

User · Answer

Active Record gives you  before type cast attributes which contain the raw attribute data before typecasting   This can be useful for returning error messages with pre-typecast values or just doing validations that aren t possible after typecast    I would shy away from Daniel Von Fange s suggestion of overriding the accessor  because doing validation in an accessor changes the accessor contract slightly  Active Record has a feature explicitly for this situation   Use it

User · Answer

Using the chronic gem   class MyModel  lt  ActiveRecord  Base   validate  valid date     def valid date      unless Chronic parse from date        errors add  from date   is missing or invalid       end   end  end

User · Answer

Have you tried the validates date time plug-in

[ruby-on-rails] How do I validate a date in rails?

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