Question

I have a Customer model that has_many polymorphic Address objects, like so:

Customer Model:

class Customer < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :mailing_addresses, :as => :addressable, :class_name => 'Address', dependent => :destroy
  accepts_nested_attributes_for :mailing_addresses


  validates :mailing_addresses, :presence => true
  validates_associated :mailing_addresses
end

Address Model:

class Address < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :addressable, :polymorphic => true

  validate  :validate_quota
  private
  def validate_quota
    case addressable_type
  when "Customer"
    customer = Customer.find(addressable_id)
    if customer.mailing_addresses.size >= 3
      puts "Adding too many records"
      errors.add(:addressable, "Too many records")
    end
  end
end

I am also using RSpec to test that the quota constraint is respected. So this spec passes, for example:

it "observes quota limit" do
  customer = FactoryGirl.create(:customer, :number_of_mailing_addresses => 3)
  expect {
    address = FactoryGirl.create(:mailing_address, :addressable => customer)
  }.to raise_error
  customer.mailing_addresses.count.should eq(3)
end

Which is good. However, this fails horribly:

it "fails add if already 3 addresses" do
  customer = FactoryGirl.create(:customer, :number_of_mailing_addresses => 3)
  expect {
    customer.mailing_addresses.create( FactoryGirl.attributes_for(:mailing_address).except(:addressable) )            
  }.to raise_error
end

I can even see in the spec output that the Address validation is failing, but for some reason it doesn’t raise an error in “customer.mailing_addresses.create()”, nor does that failed validation prevent the 4th Address model from saving to the database.

What am I missing?

Answer 1

Ah, I finally figured it out! I needed to change create to create! in my last spec in order to make the failing validation actually throw an error.