I'm running into this issue as well. It's turning my model code into hell. Basically I'm nillifying any blank values on my models before validating. Really dumb approach, but what else is there.
I think it would be a really (really) good idea to just use :allow_blank, similar to ActiveRecord. Seems like this would really make DataMapper way more convenient for people dealing with HTML forms. Here's a ticket for the issue. I'll post a patch today. http://datamapper.lighthouseapp.com/projects/20609/tickets/808-validations-need-allow_blank On Feb 20, 10:07 am, Stephen Eley <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > Just ran into a problem with a validates_format declaration. In my > app, e-mail addresses need to have a proper format (of course), but > they are also optional. Despite setting :allow_nil=> true, I > consistently get an "invalid format" error whenever I submit the form > with the e-mail field blank. This is annoying. > > In the code, I see that value.nil? is being checked, but I wonder if > it should be value.blank? to properly handle the "empty string" case > of form submissions (which is probably a lot more common than a > missing value.) I'm about to write up a spec and submit a fix for > this, but while I'm at it, I thought I'd ask what people think... > > * The docs on validates_format are wrong when they say that :allow_nil > defaults to true. It defaults to false. I personally think maybe it > _should_ default to true: after all, if I wanted to confirm that the > field isn't empty I'd do validates_present. Anyone disagree? I know > that can break behavior for people who are using validates_format as > an implied validates_present, but that's a bad idea anyway, and most > other validations that use :allow_nilhave it defaulting to true. > (Except validates_is_number. Should that one change as well?) > > * Should the :allow_niloption check for .blank? instead of .nil? in > all validators it's used in? That makes the name misleading, but I > think it's more true to the expected behavior. > > -- > Have Fun, > Steve Eley ([email protected]) > ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine > http://www.escapepod.org --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DataMapper" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/datamapper?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
