Rails - Nov 2008 - Time Zone / Active Record Persistence Error (Windows Only)

The error below has been encountered using both Rails 2.1.1 and 2.1.2.

I have a strange Time Zone / Active Record persistence error that only
occurs on Windows (it works fine on OS X).  In addition, it only occurs
when I run my entire test suite (units). If I only run a single test, it
works fine.  And the code works fine when I run my application on either
operating system.

It appears Active Record is trying to serialize the entire
TZInfo::DataTimezone object into the database column when my "user"
object is saved.   This results in a "Data too long for column error".

The time zone field is mapped as a string in the database.  I create a
time_zone object in my "user" model object as follows:

  def time_zone_object
    ::ActiveSupport::TimeZone[time_zone]
  end

The error message is:

ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid: Mysql::Error: #22001Data too long for
column ''time_zone'' at row 1:  <snip>
!ruby/object:ActiveSupport::TimeZone \nname: Central Time (US &
Canada)\ntzinfo: !ruby/object:TZInfo::DataTimezone \n  info:
!ruby/object:TZInfo::DataTimezoneInfo \n    identifier:
America/Chicago\n    last_month: 11\n    last_year: 2050\n    offsets:
\n      :o4: &id005 !ruby/object:TZInfo::TimezoneOffsetInfo \n
abbreviation: :CWT\n        std_offset: 3600\n        utc_offset:
-21600\n        utc_total_ <and so on...>

Attached is the entire error message.  This is really strange and any
tips on a workaround would be greatly appreciated. Here is the unit test
code that is failing:

require File.dirname(__FILE__) + ''/../test_helper''
require "active_support/values/time_zone"

class UserTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
  fixtures :users, :teams, :seasons, :countries

  def setup
    delete_all_users
    @usa = countries(:us)
    @central = ::ActiveSupport::TimeZone["Central Time (US &
Canada)"]
  end

  def test_active?
    bob = User.new(:name => Name.new(''bob'', nil,
''smith''),
      :email => ''bob-e0lN+vc2z0o@public.gmane.org'',
      :password => ''secret'',
      :password_confirmation => ''secret'',
      :time_zone => @central,
      :country_flag => @usa)
    bob.admin = true
    bob.save!

    assert !bob.active?

    bob.teams << Team.new(:name => "bob''s team",
:season =>
Season.current)
    bob.save!
    assert bob.active?
  end

Anyone ever seen anything like this before?  Thanks!

Attachments:
http://www.ruby-forum.com/attachment/2931/error.txt

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On 15 Nov 2008, at 05:47, John Hohlen wrote:
>
> The error below has been encountered using both Rails 2.1.1 and 2.1.2.
>
> I have a strange Time Zone / Active Record persistence error that only
> occurs on Windows (it works fine on OS X).  In addition, it only  
> occurs
> when I run my entire test suite (units). If I only run a single  
> test, it
> works fine.  And the code works fine when I run my application on  
> either
> operating system.
>
> It appears Active Record is trying to serialize the entire
> TZInfo::DataTimezone object into the database column when my
"user"
> object is saved.   This results in a "Data too long for column
error".
>
> The time zone field is mapped as a string in the database.  I create a
> time_zone object in my "user" model object as follows:
>
>  def time_zone_object
>    ::ActiveSupport::TimeZone[time_zone]
>  end
>
If the time_zone attribute is supposed to be a name like "Central Time  
(US & Canada)" shouldn''t you be trying to set it to such a
string
rather than trying to set it to the actual TimeZone instance?

Fred

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Hi Frederick,

That makes a lot more sense and that''s what I''ve done.  I
think I was
expecting too much magic out of Active Record / Rails.  I''m still 
getting up to speed on this time zone stuff.  I''m not sure why the
prior
approach ever worked at all (on my Mac).  There are times where I still 
need an actual TimeZone object, so I''ve added the following method to
my
User class.

  def time_zone_object
    ::ActiveSupport::TimeZone[time_zone]
  end

And the following if I need to format a time based on the user''s time 
zone.

  def tz_strftime(format, time)
    time_zone_object.tzinfo.strftime(format, time)
  end

Problem solved.  Thanks again for the help.
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