Question

I can validate the phone_number for uniqueness like this in the model :

validates :phone_number, :uniqueness => true 

The problem is that none of the users in the database have a phone number, and so they are all empty. While loading the page, without entring any phone number, I keep getting the following validation error :

Validation failed: Phone number has already been taken

Seems like it’s even applying the validation for empty phone numbers.

How can I modify the validation to only apply to non-empty phone numbers in the params ?

Answer 1

Either this:

validates :phone_number, :uniqueness => true, :allow_nil => true

passes if phone_number is nil (or NULL in database), or this:

validates :phone_number, :uniqueness => true, :allow_blank => true

passes if phone_number is nil or empty string