Skip validation for some members in Devise model during password reset

Question

My User (Devise) model also has name, city, nation, phone members.

In the create registration page - I validates_presence_of city, nation, phone, name, email, :on => :create

In the edit registration page - I validates_presence_of city, nation, phone, name, :on => :update

Now when I set a new password on forgot_password_page, it asks for the presence of city, nation, phone, name inside Devise::PasswordsController#update

How can I handle selective validations?

I am guessing it should be something like,

validates_presence_of city, nation, phone, name, :on => :update, :if => :not_recovering_password

def not_recovering_password
  # what goes here
end

Answer 1

I had a similar problem because when my User is created not all its fields are required. The other fields' presence is checked on: :update using a validation.

So this is how I solved:

validates :birthdate, presence: true, on: :update, unless: Proc.new{|u| u.encrypted_password_changed? }

The method encrypted_password_changed? is the one used in the Devise Recoverable.

Answer 2

I came across this question looking for an answer to a similar question, so hopefully someone else finds this useful. In my case, I was dealing with legacy data that had missing information for fields that were previously not required but were later made required. Here's what I did, essentially, to finish the above code:

validates_presence_of city, nation, phone, name, :on => :update, :if => :not_recovering_password

def not_recovering_password
  password_confirmation.nil?
end

Basically, it uses the absence/presence of the password_confirmation field to know if a user is trying to change/reset their password. If it's not filled, they are not changing it (and, thus, run your validations). If it is filled, then they are changing/resetting, and, thus, you want to skip your validations.