Question

What’s the best way to validate that the end date is not before the start date, and start date is after the end date in Rails?

I have this in my view controller:

<tr>
    <td><%= f.label text="Starts:" %></td>
    <td><%= f.datetime_select :start_date, :order => [:day, :month, :year]%></td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><%= f.label text="Ends:" %></td>
    <td><%= f.datetime_select :end_date,:order => [:day, :month, :year]</td>
</tr>

I want it to come up with a popup of sorts, with a meaningful message.

I would like to make a generic method that takes two parameters, start and end date, which I then can call in my viewcontroller ; fx in the code above. Or, do I need to use jQuery instead?

Answer 1

If you want client side validation, use jQuery.

Or in rails, to validate server side, you could create your own I guess?

def date_validation
  if self[:end_date] < self[:start_date]
    errors[:end_date] << "Error message"
    return false
  else
    return true
  end
end

Rails >= 7.0 makes this a one-liner

validates_comparison_of :end_date, greater_than_or_equal_to: :end_date

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