Question

How do I validate a name consisting of two columns with simple validate call, or with a validator method?

I have a name consisting of two column, firstname and surname. A record is valid only when firstname + surname is unique.

If I add firstname: "lala la", surname: "le li lo" it is valid because it is the only one.

If I enter firstname: "lala", surname: "la le li lo", and the concatenation of firstname and surname is the same in both examples, the second shouldn’t be valid.

I cannot find simple way to do this.

I tried things like:

validates_uniqueness_of :firstname, :surname, :scope => {:firstname, :surname}

or combinations of this, but that didn’t work.

Answer 1

firstname=”lalla”, surname= “leli”

and

firstname=”la”, surname= “llaleli” are different,so following validation can’t validate it

validates :surname, :uniqueness => { :scope => :firstname }

try this

idea is that compute full name(in a callback like before_validation) and store it in table(So you need another column) now add validation on that column

before_validation :compute_fullname
validates :fullname, :uniqueness => true


def compute_fullname 
   fullname = (first_name+surname).replace ' ',''  #i don't like gusb you can try it too
end