Monthly Archives: January 2009

Rails date validation freak on blank

When I have a date that can be nil, I usually end up needing the following code, which I’ve monkey patched into ActiveRecord::Base:

private
 
def string_to_date(value)
value = case value
when blank? then nil
when Date then value
else
begin
Date.parse(value) rescue nil
rescue
nil
end
end
end

Afterward, I simply use the awesome validates_timeliness plugin with :allow_nil => true.

noop Firebug for other browsers

If you’ve left console.log statements in your code intentionally or by mistake, the following will allow a successful noop in browsers for which Firebug is either not installed, disabled, or uninstallable.

liaison.util.firebug = function() {
(function() {
if(!window.console) {
console = {};
console.log = Ext.emptyFn;
}
})();
};