PG::StringDataRightTruncation: ERROR: PostgreSQL string(255) limit | Heroku

Question

I Have a Listings controller and users can add a description. If the description is long, which it should be, I receive this error in Heroku:

ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid (PG::StringDataRightTruncation: ERROR:  
value too long for type character varying(255)

How can I fix this?

Edit

I found out (John said it also) that i have to change in my table string(which has a limit) to :text which is limitless. But only changing the table in the migration didn't seem to work.

My Edited Listings Migration

class CreateListings < ActiveRecord::Migration
def change
create_table :listings do |t|
  t.string :title
  t.text :description, :limit => nil

  t.timestamps
end
end
end

But i'm still getting Heroku trouble ->

    2013-07-29T09:39:05.069692+00:00 app[web.1]: ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid (PG::StringDataRightTruncation: ERROR:  value too long for type character v rying(255)
2013-07-29T09:39:05.069870+00:00 app[web.1]:
2013-07-29T09:39:05.069692+00:00 app[web.1]: : INSERT INTO "listings" ("created_at", "description", "image_content_type", "image_file_name", "image_fil _size", "image_updated_at", "price", "title", "updated_at", "user_id") VALUES ($1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7, $8, $9, $10) RETURNING "id"):
2013-07-29T09:39:05.069870+00:00 app[web.1]:   app/controllers/listings_controller.rb:35:in `block in create'
2013-07-29T09:39:05.069870+00:00 app[web.1]:   app/controllers/listings_controller.rb:34:in `create'
2013-07-29T09:39:05.069870+00:00 app[web.1]:
2013-07-29T09:39:05.069860+00:00 heroku[router]: at=info method=POST path=/listings host=vaultx.herokuapp.com fwd="178.59.173.169" dyno=web.1 connect=3 s service=1882ms status=500 bytes=1266

Answer 1

It would seem that specifying the column as a :text type and not a :string would fix this problem.

Answer 2

Do not edit your previous migrations. Never do that, as a rule. Instead you'll create a new migration that will make the change (and allow you to rollback if necessary.)

First, generate the migration:

rails g migration change_datatype_on_TABLE_from_string_to_text

Then edit the generated file so that looks something like (change the table and column names as necessary):

class ChangeDatatypeOnTableFromStringToText < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def up
    change_column :table_name, :column_name, :text, :limit => nil
  end

  def down
    change_column :table_name, :column_name, :string
  end
end

Now run the migration:

bundle exec rake db:migrate

That should do it. (Note I defined the up and down methods individually instead of using the change method because using the change method only works with reversible migrations, and trying to rollback a datatype change would throw a ActiveRecord::IrreversibleMigration exception.)

Answer 3

The input given is too long for a string field, so just change to a text field:

class ChangeListingsDescriptionTypeToText < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    change_column :listings, :description, :text
  end
end

Then run rake db:migrate