Rails - Mar 2006 - validates_confirmation_of has stopped working

Hi Railers,

I''m past considering myself a noob in Rails land - I think what
I''m up against
here is more of a bug or an anomaly that I''m unaware of (or that has
changed
in a recent version).

I had a fully working validates_confirmation_of :email_address field in my app 
- was one of the first things I set up, extremely simple, been working for a 
long time.

Then one day I notice that it''s not working any more - the validator
basically
doesn''t care if you fill in the email_address field but not 
email_address_confirmation, and it certainly doesn''t care if they
don''t
match.

I''ve tried looking at the examples again, and my code follows them to
the
letter (with the exception that my field name is different). I''ve
checked the
logs and the appropriate parameters are being sent through.

In desperation, I even tried validates_presence_of :email_address_confirmation 
to ensure that it''s filled in - that works to enforce the field in the
form,
yet the confirmation check still doesn''t seem to take place.

It was my belief (and this certainly worked fine exactly like this for a long 
time) that if I had...

validates_presence_of :email_address
validates_confirmation_of :email_address

... that would take care of enforcing that both fields are filled in and match 
each other.

I haven''t changed anything on this code, yet it''s stopped
doing the
confirmation validation.

Could anyone else confirm this is/isn''t the case?  I''m running
Rails 1.0.0 and
Ruby 1.8.4.

This thread appears to be discussing a similar problem, but it''s not
quite the
same: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.ruby.rails/25445

I''ve also searched the Rails Trac bugs database, and can''t
find anything about
this problem.

I''m enforcing the format of the email address using...

validates_format_of :email_address,
:with => /^([^@\s]+)@((?:[-a-z0-9]+\.)+[a-z]{2,})$/,
:message => "is not valid",
:if => Proc.new {|model| !model.email_address.blank?}

...which combined with my other validations surely should (and did for a long 
time) take care of all possible scenarios with the email addresses.  Meaning:

* Neither field present.
* Email address present, confirmation not.
* Confirmation present, email address not.
* Both present, don''t match.
* Both present, match, but format is not an email address.
* Both present, match, format is an email address.

So something is seriously amiss here, and I don''t know what it is, but
this
used to work fine, and it''s just stopped working.

Anyone else?  Thanks for your help!

Cheers,

~Dave

-- 

Dave Silvester
Rent-A-Monkey Website Development
http://www.rentamonkey.com/

PGP Key: http://www.rentamonkey.com/pgpkey.asc

Hi Dave,

There was a posting on 1/20/06 by Adam Denenberg reporting a similar problem
with password confirmation.  He didn''t get any replies.

Best regards,
Bill

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Silvester" <dave@rentamonkey.com>
To: "Ruby On Rails" <rails@lists.rubyonrails.org>
Sent: 2006-03-14 6:14 AM
Subject: [Rails] validates_confirmation_of has stopped working

> Hi Railers,
>
> I''m past considering myself a noob in Rails land - I think what
I''m up
against
> here is more of a bug or an anomaly that I''m unaware of (or that
has
changed
> in a recent version).
>
> I had a fully working validates_confirmation_of :email_address field in my
app
> - was one of the first things I set up, extremely simple, been working for
a
> long time.
>
> Then one day I notice that it''s not working any more - the
validator
basically
> doesn''t care if you fill in the email_address field but not
> email_address_confirmation, and it certainly doesn''t care if they
don''t
> match.
>
> I''ve tried looking at the examples again, and my code follows them
to the
> letter (with the exception that my field name is different). I''ve
checked
the
> logs and the appropriate parameters are being sent through.
>
> In desperation, I even tried validates_presence_of
:email_address_confirmation
> to ensure that it''s filled in - that works to enforce the field in
the
form,
> yet the confirmation check still doesn''t seem to take place.
>
> It was my belief (and this certainly worked fine exactly like this for a
long
> time) that if I had...
>
> validates_presence_of :email_address
> validates_confirmation_of :email_address
>
> ... that would take care of enforcing that both fields are filled in and
match
> each other.
>
> I haven''t changed anything on this code, yet it''s stopped
doing the
> confirmation validation.
>
> Could anyone else confirm this is/isn''t the case?  I''m
running Rails 1.0.0
and
> Ruby 1.8.4.
>
> This thread appears to be discussing a similar problem, but it''s
not quite
the
> same: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.ruby.rails/25445
>
> I''ve also searched the Rails Trac bugs database, and
can''t find anything
about
> this problem.
>
> I''m enforcing the format of the email address using...
>
> validates_format_of :email_address,
> :with => /^([^@\s]+)@((?:[-a-z0-9]+\.)+[a-z]{2,})$/,
> :message => "is not valid",
> :if => Proc.new {|model| !model.email_address.blank?}
>
> ...which combined with my other validations surely should (and did for a
long
> time) take care of all possible scenarios with the email addresses.
Meaning:
>
> * Neither field present.
> * Email address present, confirmation not.
> * Confirmation present, email address not.
> * Both present, don''t match.
> * Both present, match, but format is not an email address.
> * Both present, match, format is an email address.
>
> So something is seriously amiss here, and I don''t know what it is,
but
this
> used to work fine, and it''s just stopped working.
>
> Anyone else?  Thanks for your help!
>
> Cheers,
>
> ~Dave
>
> --
>
> Dave Silvester
> Rent-A-Monkey Website Development
> http://www.rentamonkey.com/
>
> PGP Key: http://www.rentamonkey.com/pgpkey.asc
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

On Tuesday 14 Mar 2006 12:56, Bill Walton wrote:
> There was a posting on 1/20/06 by Adam Denenberg reporting a similar
> problem with password confirmation.  He didn''t get any replies.
Cheers Bill - on list as well as off list!  I''ve emailed Adam but no
reply
yet.  I''m wondering if it''s this bug...

http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/785

... though the description isn''t completely clear so I can''t
be sure.

The thing I can''t understand is that this WAS working perfectly, and
that as
far as I know I haven''t changed anything with it except keeping my
Rails
version up to date with the current gem version.

Anyone got any good alternative suggestions for a way to homebrew a 
confirmation field using custom validators?  I''m guessing it
shouldn''t be too
hard to do, but I only want to do that as a last resort, since really
I''d
rather it happened using the official built-in way of doing it if possible.

It''s just, I really need this feature to work properly again - and
soon!  :-S

~Dave

-- 

Dave Silvester
Rent-A-Monkey Website Development
http://www.rentamonkey.com/

PGP Key: http://www.rentamonkey.com/pgpkey.asc

On Tuesday 14 Mar 2006 12:14, Dave Silvester wrote:
> I had a fully working validates_confirmation_of :email_address field in my
> app - was one of the first things I set up, extremely simple, been working
> for a long time.
>
> Then one day I notice that it''s not working any more - the
validator
> basically doesn''t care if you fill in the email_address field but
not
> email_address_confirmation, and it certainly doesn''t care if they
don''t
> match.
Sorry to resurrect an extinct thread and reply to myself, but following on 
from my original message that you can read in full at:

http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/57951#47432

I''ve finally figured out what wasn''t working, and why my 
validates_confirmation_of had stopped caring.

In my app, it''s a multi-stage form, where I''m saving things to
the session,
but also re-loading stuff from previous values in order to preserve fields 
even where the record isn''t saved. Basically, a system that allows you
to
jump about between different stages of the process and remembers things 
whatever you do, validating at each stage but only saving to the database 
right at the end.

Anyway... so what I was doing was storing the values in my session, recalling 
and combining them with new values when the form was submitted to build up 
the full amount of info required.

When saving the object to the session, all the true fields (those of the 
database table) get saved fine, but the confirmation virtual field is not 
saved, so at the point I recall previous data and create a new combined 
object, that foo_confirmation field is actually reset to nil.

I''m still not 100% sure of the exact way or position it''s
breaking it, but the
remedy has been to copy in the foo_confirmation field from the params if
it''s
set.  Rather like this:

if params[:blah][:foo_confirmation]
  @blah.foo_confirmation = params[:blah][:foo_confirmation]
end

Now my validators work properly.  Thought I''d just post a follow-up, in
case
anybody else ever finds themselves in this arrgh-hair-tearing-out scenario.

I don''t think it''s a bug as such, probably just a side-effect
of storing,
recalling and combining values using the session like this.  (Since my system 
preserves all input - even invalid or incomplete input.)

In hindsight, there may have been a more efficient way to do what I''ve
had to
do, but as this was my first non-trivial Rails project (and although
I''ve got
quite a few Rails sites done now, this one is still ongoing because
it''s very
non-trivial!) I''ve picked up a lot more tricks since back when I was
planning
this.

Anyway, here''s hoping that my follow-up helps someone else in the same 
situation at some point.

Cheers,

~Dave

-- 

Dave Silvester
Rent-A-Monkey Website Development
http://www.rentamonkey.com/

PGP Key: http://www.rentamonkey.com/pgpkey.asc

I have also recently (well its the first time I have wanted to use
validates_confirmation_of) been having problems with this particular validation
method.

Looking at the script/console I would say that the model just isnt accepting the
*_confirmation attribute at all. Are we required to add an attr_accessor or
other attr_* notification to the model in order to use this validation
mechanism?