https://github.com/rubiety/nilify_blanks

Provides a framework for saving incoming blank values as nil in the database in instances where you'd rather use DB NULL than simply a blank string.
https://github.com/rubiety/nilify_blanks

Last synced: 13 days ago
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Provides a framework for saving incoming blank values as nil in the database in instances where you'd rather use DB NULL than simply a blank string.

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/rubiety/nilify_blanks
• Owner: rubiety
• License: mit
• Created: 2008-08-16T17:35:46.000Z (over 16 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2023-03-31T13:53:11.000Z (over 1 year ago)
• Last Synced: 2024-08-10T23:18:19.416Z (3 months ago)
• Language: Ruby
• Homepage: http://benhughes.name/
• Size: 117 KB
• Stars: 326
• Watchers: 6
• Forks: 34
• Open Issues: 12
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.rdoc
  • Changelog: CHANGELOG.rdoc
  • License: LICENSE

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README

        
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== Nilify Blanks

In Rails when saving a model from a form and values are not provided by the user, an empty string is recorded to the database instead of a NULL as many would prefer (mixing blanks and NULLs can become confusing).  This plugin allows you to specify a list of attributes (or exceptions from all the attributes) that will be converted to nil if they are blank before a model is saved.

By default, columns set as NOT NULL will not be nilified, since that value cannot be persisted, and it might be better to catch that with a validation. If you want to nilify those columns anyway, you can use `only:` (see below) to explicitly mention them.

Only attributes responding to blank? with a value of true will be converted to nil.  Therefore, this does not work with integer fields with the value of 0, for example.  Usage is best shown through examples:

== Requirements

As of v1.4.0, this gem requires Rails 4 and Ruby 2.2 or higher.

== Install

Include the gem using bundler in your Gemfile:

  gem "nilify_blanks"

== Basic Usage

  # Checks and converts all content fields in the model

  class Post < ActiveRecord::Base

    nilify_blanks

  end

  # Checks and converts only text fields in the model

  class Post < ActiveRecord::Base

    nilify_blanks types: [:text]

  end

  # Checks and converts only the title and author fields

  class Post < ActiveRecord::Base

    nilify_blanks only: [:author, :title]

  end

  # Checks and converts all fields except for title and author

  class Post < ActiveRecord::Base

    nilify_blanks except: [:author, :title]

  end

  # Checks and converts any fields, regardless of their null constraint

  class Post < ActiveRecord::Base

    nilify_blanks nullables_only: false

  end

== Global Usage

You can also apply nilify_blanks to all models inheriting from ActiveRecord::Base:

  ActiveRecord::Base.nilify_blanks

Or perhaps just a model namespace base class:

  Inventory::Base.nilify_blanks

== Specifying a Callback

Checking uses an ActiveRecord before_validation callback by default, but you can specify a different callback with the :before option.  Any callback will work - just first remove the "before_" prefix from the name.

  class Post < ActiveRecord::Base

    nilify_blanks before: :create

  end

  class Post < ActiveRecord::Base

    nilify_blanks before: :validation_on_update

  end

== RSpec Matcher

First, include the matchers:

  require "nilify_blanks/matchers"

To ensure for a given column:

  describe City do

    it { should nilify_blanks_for(:name) }

  end

To ensure for all applicable content columns:

  describe City do

    it { should nilify_blanks }

  end

You can optionally match on options also:

  describe City do

    it { should nilify_blanks_for(:name, before: :create) }

  end

  describe City do

    it { should nilify_blanks(before: :create) }

  end

== Running Tests

This gem uses appraisal to test with different versions of the dependencies. See Appraisal first for which versions are tested, then run to test all appraisals:

  $ rake appraisal install

  $ rake appraisal test