Rails validation error messages: Displaying only one error message per field

Question

Rails displays all validation error messages associated with a given field. If I have three validates_XXXXX_of :email, and I leave the field blank, I get three

Answer 1

Or you can simply modify the array (with 'bang' method delete_at), so everything after stays default rails, i18n etc.

<% @article.errors.keys.each { |attr| @article.errors[attr].delete_at(1) } %> 

Complete working code:

<% if @article.errors.any? %>
  <% @article.errors.keys.each { |attr| @article.errors[attr].delete_at(1) } %> 
   <ul>
    <% @article.errors.full_messages.each do |msg| %>
     <li><%= msg %></li>
    <% end %>
  </ul>
<% end %>

Answer 2

Add a method to ActiveModel::Errors class

module ActiveModel
  class Errors
    def full_unique_messages
      unique_messages = messages.map { |attribute, list_of_messages| [attribute, list_of_messages.first] }
      unique_messages.map { |attribute_message_pair| full_message *attribute_message_pair }
    end
  end
end

Add it to a file, like lib/core_ext/rails/active_model/errors.rb. Create a file config/initializers/core_ext.rb and add a require "core_ext/rails/active_model/errors.rb" to it.

Answer 3

Imo simplier is:

<% @model.errors.each do |attr, msg| %>
  <%= "#{attr} #{msg}" if @model.errors[attr].first == msg %> 
<% end %>

Answer 4

I wrote a custom helper

def display_error(field)
    if @user.errors[field].any?
        raw @user.errors[field].first+"<br>"
    end
end

and then I use it in view under the text field like so

<%= display_error(:password) %>

Answer 5

# Extracts at most <strong>one error</strong> message <strong>per field</strong> from the errors-object.
# @param  [ActiveModel::Errors] the_errors_object The errors-object.
# @raise  [ArgumentError] If the given argument is not an instance of ActiveModel::Errors.
# @return [Array] A string-array containing at most one error message per field from the given errors-object.
def get_one_error_per_field(the_errors_object)
  if the_errors_object.is_a? ActiveModel::Errors    
    errors = {}  
    the_errors_object.each do |field_name, associated_error|
      errors[field_name] = the_errors_object.full_message(field_name, associated_error) unless errors[field_name]
    end 
    return errors.values
  else
    raise ArgumentError.new('The given argument isn\'t an instance of ActiveModel::Errors!')
  end 
end 

Answer 6

Bert over at RailsForum wrote about this a little while back. He wrote the code below and I added some minor tweaks for it to run on Rails-3.0.0-beta2.

Add this to a file called app/helpers/errors_helper.rb and simply add helper "errors" to your controller.

module ErrorsHelper

  # see: lib/action_view/helpers/active_model_helper.rb
  def error_messages_for(*params)
        options = params.extract_options!.symbolize_keys

        objects = Array.wrap(options.delete(:object) || params).map do |object|
          object = instance_variable_get("@#{object}") unless object.respond_to?(:to_model)
          object = convert_to_model(object)

          if object.class.respond_to?(:model_name)
            options[:object_name] ||= object.class.model_name.human.downcase
          end

          object
        end

        objects.compact!
        count = objects.inject(0) {|sum, object| sum + object.errors.count }

        unless count.zero?
          html = {}
          [:id, :class].each do |key|
            if options.include?(key)
              value = options[key]
              html[key] = value unless value.blank?
            else
              html[key] = 'errorExplanation'
            end
          end
          options[:object_name] ||= params.first

          I18n.with_options :locale => options[:locale], :scope => [:errors, :template] do |locale|
            header_message = if options.include?(:header_message)
              options[:header_message]
            else
              locale.t :header, :count => count, :model => options[:object_name].to_s.gsub('_', ' ')
            end

            message = options.include?(:message) ? options[:message] : locale.t(:body)

            error_messages = objects.sum do |object|
              object.errors.on(:name)
              full_flat_messages(object).map do |msg|
                content_tag(:li, ERB::Util.html_escape(msg))
              end
            end.join.html_safe

            contents = ''
            contents << content_tag(options[:header_tag] || :h2, header_message) unless header_message.blank?
            contents << content_tag(:p, message) unless message.blank?
            contents << content_tag(:ul, error_messages)

            content_tag(:div, contents.html_safe, html)
          end
        else
          ''
        end
  end

  ####################
  #
  # added to make the errors display in a single line per field
  #
  ####################
  def full_flat_messages(object)
    full_messages = []

    object.errors.each_key do |attr|
      msg_part=msg=''
      object.errors[attr].each do |message|
        next unless message
        if attr == "base"
          full_messages << message
        else
          msg=object.class.human_attribute_name(attr)
          msg_part+= I18n.t('activerecord.errors.format.separator', :default => ' ') + (msg_part=="" ? '': ' & ' ) + message
        end
      end
      full_messages << "#{msg} #{msg_part}" if msg!=""
    end
    full_messages
  end

end