Working with default values

[7even]

Currently lotus-model doesn't respect default values in the database:

CREATE TABLE deployments (
    id integer NOT NULL,
    project_id integer NOT NULL,
    environment character varying NOT NULL,
    branch character varying NOT NULL,
    deployed_at timestamp with time zone DEFAULT now() NOT NULL
);

class Deployment
  include Lotus::Entity
  attributes :id, :project_id, :environment, :branch, :deployed_at

  attr_accessor :project
end

deployment = Deployment.new(project_id: 1, environment: 'production', branch: 'master')
DeploymentRepository.persist(deployment)
# Sequel::NotNullConstraintViolation: PG::NotNullViolation: ERROR:  null value in column "deployed_at" violates not-null constraint
# DETAIL:  Failing row contains (4, 1, production, master, null).

Seems like the empty deployed_at value is being written to the database. I see 2 possible ways to solve this issue: to read the default value into the entity upon it's creation (but I believe it breaks incapsulation and is not very helpful with a default value of NOW()), or to save only attributes that were changed.

[jodosha]

@7even Thanks for reporting this. Which version are you using?

[7even]

The latest one, lotus-model (0.2.4).

[jodosha]

@7even Can you please also paste here the mapping for that entity?

[7even]

Yep, here it is:

collection :deployments do
  entity     Deployment
  repository DeploymentRepository

  attribute :id,          Integer
  attribute :project_id,  Integer
  attribute :environment, String
  attribute :branch,      String
  attribute :deployed_at, Time
end

[luishurtado]

Although there is something to fix regarding the NOT NULL issue, indicating that a given attribute is required and it has a default value should also be clearly defined in the application level and not rely in the database.

[runlevel5]

@7even this has been addressed in #161