I’ve always wondered which argument pass to validates method for model which hash belongs_to association: association name or field name (Rails names it as a foreign_key). Do you know? Have you ever been asked this question? I know the answer for this question and of course I will share my idea with you in this post.

Association name of foreign key?

Assume we have to models: Account and User. Account has mane users and user belongs to account. The code below:

class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_one :user
end

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :account
end

We want to add validation for user to check if account is presented. And it can be achieved with two ways:

• We can add user User class presence validator for association name:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :account
  validates :account, :presence => true
end

• Or we can add presence valitator for foreign key:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :account
  validates :account_id, :presence => true
end

Which way do you use? Do you know what is difference between them? Let’s check it in rails console.

1.1. Foreign key way

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :account
  validates :account_id, :presence => true
end

irb(main):001:0> Account.destroy_all # Destroy all accounts in the DB
irb(main):002:0> Account.create(:id => 1)
irb(main):003:0> u = User.new(:account_id => 100)
irb(main):004:0> u.valid? # => true
irb(main):005:0> Account.exists?(100) # => nil - make sure that there is no account with id = 100

This test shows us one idea - presence validator for foreign key don’t care about record existence. It means that you are able to pass account_id from form (for example, or API) with any value and ActiveRecord will save it silently. It’s obvious that it’s a hole in the application! Let’s say now what happens with second approach.

Association name way

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :account
  validates :account, :presence => true
end

irb(main):001:0> Account.destroy_all
irb(main):002:0> Account.create(:id => 1)
irb(main):003:0> u = User.new(:account_id => 100)
irb(main):004:0> u.valid? # => false
irb(main):005:0> Account.exists?(100) # => nil
irb(main):006:0> u.errors.full_messages # => ["Account can't be blank"]
irb(main):007:0> u.account_id = 1 # => 1
irb(main):008:0> u.valid? # => true
irb(main):009:0> u.account_id = nil
irb(main):010:0> u.save # => false
irb(main):026:0> u.account = Account.new
irb(main):026:0> u.save # => true - this record has saved because account doesn't have validations at all. If it had the user wouldn't be saved never!

This approach obviously is more robust - this validation cares about associated object existence, foreign key presence and also automatically validated associated object.

Conclusion

As you see 1st approach can bring the security issue and database inconsistency. So the answer is the following: use association name for presence validator.