How to validate the date such that it is after today in Rails?

Question

I have an Active Record model that contains attributes: expiry_date. How do I go about validating it such that it is after today(present date at that time)? I am totally new to

Answer 1

In rails 4+ there are future? and past? methods for DateTime objects, so a simpler answer is

class Invoice < ActiveRecord::Base
  validate :expiration_date_cannot_be_in_the_past

  def expiration_date_cannot_be_in_the_past
    if expiration_date.present? && expiration_date.past?
      errors.add(:expiration_date, "can't be in the past")
    end
  end    
end

Answer 2

I took @dankohn answer, and updated to be I18n ready. I also removed the blank test, because that's not the responsibility of this validator, and can easily be enabled by adding presence: true to the validates call.

The updated class, now named in_future, which I think is nicer than not_in_past

class InFutureValidator < ActiveModel::EachValidator
  def validate_each(record, attribute, value)
    record.errors.add(attribute, (options[:message] || :in_future)) unless in_future?(value)
  end

  def in_future?(date)
    date.present? && date > Time.zone.today
  end
end

Now add the in_future key to your localization file.

For all fields under errors.messages.in_future, e.g. for Dutch:

nl:
  errors:
    messages:
      in_future: 'moet in de toekomst zijn'

Or per field under activerecord.errors.models.MODEL.attributes.FIELD.in_future, e.g. for the end_date in a Vacancy model in Dutch:

nl:
  activerecord:
    errors:
      models:
        vacancy:
          attributes:
            end_date:
              in_future: 'moet in de toekomst zijn'

Answer 3

Here's the code to set up a custom validator:

#app/validators/not_in_past_validator.rb
class NotInPastValidator < ActiveModel::EachValidator
  def validate_each(record, attribute, value)
    if value.blank?
      record.errors.add attribute, (options[:message] || "can't be blank")
    elsif value <= Time.zone.today
      record.errors.add attribute,
                        (options[:message] || "can't be in the past")
    end
  end
end

And in your model:

validates :signed_date, not_in_past: true

Answer 4

Your question is (almost) exactly answered in the Rails guides.

Here's the example code they give. This class validates that the date is in the past, while your question is how to validate that the date is in the future, but adapting it should be pretty easy:

class Invoice < ActiveRecord::Base
  validate :expiration_date_cannot_be_in_the_past

  def expiration_date_cannot_be_in_the_past
    if expiration_date.present? && expiration_date < Date.today
      errors.add(:expiration_date, "can't be in the past")
    end
  end    
end

Answer 5

The simplest and working solution is to use the in-built validation from Rails. Just validates it like that:

validates :expiry_date, inclusion: { in: (Date.today..Date.today+5.years) }