Why does false invalidate validates_presence_of?

Question

Ok steps to reproduce this:

prompt> rails test_app prompt> cd test_app prompt> script/generate model event_service published:boolean 

then go into the migration and add not null and default published to false:

class CreateEventServices < ActiveRecord::Migration   def self.up     create_table :event_services do |t|       t.boolean :published, :null => false, :default => false       t.timestamps     end   end    def self.down     drop_table :event_services   end end 

now migrate your changes and run your tests:

prompt>rake db:migrate prompt>rake 

You should get no errors at this time. Now edit the model so that you validate_presence_of published:

class EventService < ActiveRecord::Base   validates_presence_of :published end 

Now edit the unit test event_service_test.rb:

require 'test_helper'  class EventServiceTest < ActiveSupport::TestCase   test "the truth" do     e = EventService.new     e.published = false     assert e.valid?   end end 

and run rake:

prompt>rake 

You will get an error in the test. Now set e.published to true and rerun the test. IT WORKS! I think this probably has something to do with the field being boolean but I can't figure it out. Is this a bug in rails? or am I doing something wrong?

Answer 1

See the API docs...

If you want to validate the presence of a boolean field (where the real values are true and false), you will want to use validates_inclusion_of :field_name, :in => [true, false].