Validation Helpers

Here is a list of some of the common validation helpers in Ruby on Rails;

• validates_acceptance_of
• validates_associated
• validates_confirmation_of
• validates_each
• validates_exclusion_of
• validates_format_of
• validates_inclusion_of
• validates_length_of
• validates_numericality_of
• validates_presence_of
• validates_uniqueness_of

validates_acceptance_of is used to see if someone has checked a checkbox during a form submission, the attribute does not need to have an associated database column.

validates_associated is used to see if the objects you are associating with your model are valid objects.

validates_confirmation_of is used when confirming things like passwords the convention is that you would confirm the attribute password against the attribute password_confirm.

validates_each is used to validate attributes against a block of code.

validates_exclusion_of is used to validate if an attribute is not in a particular enumerable object.

validates_format_of is used to validate the format of an attribute. This is handled with a regular expression and can be used to make sure a pattern does not exist within the attribute.

validates_inclusion_of is used as the opposite of exclusion, it makes sure the attribute is found within an enumerable object.

validates_length_of is used to verify that the length of the attribute matches the restrictions that have been put in place around it.

validates_numericality_of is used to ensure something is a number and can go as far to say a number greater than or less than something, or force it to only be an integer.

validates_presence_of is used to ensure that the attribute exists and is not nil when it is being saved.

validates_uniqueness_of is used to ensure that there are no other attributes with the same information in the system.

I hope this helps someone as an uber quick reference.