Check for belongs_to asks for explicit "required: true" when using before_validation

[matheus-cardoso-deel]

rails version

5.1+

shoulda-matchers version

gem 'shoulda-matchers', '4.0.0.rc1'

Error

  1) Employee should belong to manager required: true
     Failure/Error: it { should belong_to(:manager) }
       Expected Employee to have a belongs_to association called manager (the association should have been defined with `required: true`, but was not)
     # ./spec/models/employee_spec.rb:4:in `block (2 levels) in <top (required)>'

Steps to reproduce

class Manager < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :employees
end

class Employee < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :manager

  before_validation :add_manager

  def add_manager
    self.manager = Manager.create
  end
end

require 'rails_helper'

RSpec.describe Employee, type: :model do
  it { should belong_to(:manager) }
end

Note

It continues to happen if I set the required: true

[mcmire]

Hey @mccard. Thanks for the detailed report and sorry it took so long for me to get back to you on this.

The reason why the matcher is failing is that your manager association is always being set. A presence validation is being added automatically by the matcher, but the matcher is confused because it expects a new instance of Employee to fail validation if manager is not set.

I think I mentioned this in another issue, but I'm wondering now if I need to add an additional qualifier that tells the matcher not to worry about the presence validation check. Something like should belong_to(:manager).without_validating_presence. Or, perhaps even automatically checking for a presence validation is the wrong move here. I'll have to think more about this.

[johnam]

What about unsetting the association before running the presence validation? I can provide a PR if that would be useful.

[mcmire]

@johnam Yup, that's what the matcher is doing already. The problem is that no matter how the matcher changes the association, the model is overwriting it before the presence validation gets run.

[mcmire]

I've added a new without_validating_presence qualifier to belong_to to address cases like these, and that will be available in 4.0. Docs here:

shoulda-matchers/lib/shoulda/matchers/active_record/association_matcher.rb

Lines 275 to 302 in 707d87d

	# #### without_presence_validation
	#
	# Use `without_presence_validation` with `belong_to` to prevent the
	# matcher from checking whether the association disallows nil (Rails 5+
	# only). This can be helpful if you have a custom hook that always sets
	# the association to a meaningful value:
	#
	# class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
	# belongs_to :organization
	#
	# before_validation :autoassign_organization
	#
	# private
	#
	# def autoassign_organization
	# self.organization = Organization.create!
	# end
	# end
	#
	# # RSpec
	# describe Person
	# it { should belong_to(:organization).without_presence_validation }
	# end
	#
	# # Minitest (Shoulda)
	# class PersonTest < ActiveSupport::TestCase
	# should belong_to(:organization).without_presence_validation
	# end

[vesh95]

Sorry for my English. When I tries use without_presence_validation i have exception

undefined method 'without_presence_validation' for #<Shoulda::Matchers::ActiveModel::ValidatePresenceOfMatcher:0x0000557e5e4f29c8>```

in Gemfile.lock using shoulda-matchers 4.3.0

[vesh95]

Sorry. I use without_presence_validation instead without_validating_presence

[mcmire]

@vesh95 It looks like you're using without_presence_validation on validate_presence_of. You will probably want to use it on belong_to.