Question

I wanted to create an attribute on my model that took in a symbol for ascending or descending. However, RoR does not allow enumerated types in the database, so I created a boolean property and then added an attribute on my model. This works great for everything except validations, which I can’t seem to get to work. container.valid? always returns true, even when order hasn’t been set.Any ideas?

class Container < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :score_order
  validates :order, :presence => true

  def order
    return order_ascends ? :ascending : :descending
  end

  def order=(order)
    case order
    when :ascending
        self.order_ascends = true
    when :descending
        self.order_ascends = false
    else
        throw :unexpected_argument
    end
  end
end

Answer 1

You want to validate order_ascends:

1: it is present
2: it is a boolean

The order method is just what you’re using to interface to order_ascends.