Multiple paperclip attachments get saved without specifying a file input

Question

I have a User model which has a has_many association of Asset model(standard paperclip setup). In the view, I use fields_for helper to setup a number of file fields for the assets. When the end user does not specify a file, the asset records will not be saved. Which is what I want. So far so good.

Then I added a caption attribute to Asset model. I also put a text field to each corresponding file field. Here comes the problem. When the end user does not specify a file or a caption, the asset records will be SAVED. The saved record has a caption of empty string, with all other paperclip attributs being nil.

The question is how can I prevent the asset record being saved when there is no file assigned to paperclip attributes? And since the assets are optional, I don't want any error feedback generated. Any ideas? Thanks.

Answer 1

You could do a validates_presence_of :caption in your Asset model, but that also makes captions required. How about this checking for the presence of a file on all assets linked to the User before_validation? Something like this maybe? (might need some tweaking)

class User < AR::Base
  has_many :assets, :dependent => :destroy

  before_validation :check_assets

  def check_assets
    self.assets.each do |asset|
      unless asset.attachment.file?
        if asset.new_record?
          self.assets.delete(asset)
        else
          asset.destroy
        end
      end
    end
  end
end