Combination between insert_conflict and validate

[jvanderen1]

⚠️ Issue

I am using the :insert_conflict Sequel model plugin and I believe there may be some difficulty using insert_conflict with validate.

For example, says I have the following example model:

# frozen_string_literal: true

# Table: users
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Columns:
#  id                         | integer                     | PRIMARY KEY GENERATED BY DEFAULT AS IDENTITY
#  email                      | text                        |
#  phone_number               | text                        |
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

class User < Sequel.Model($db[:users])
  def validate
    super
    validates_unique :email
  end
end

Say the following User record exists:

User.first.to_hash
=> {:id=>1,
 :email=>"[email protected]",
 :phone_number=>"1234567890"}

I would like to update a User record if there is a conflicting value for email in my case. For example:

target_hash = {
  email: '[email protected]'
}

update_hash = {
  phone_number: "0987654321"
}

User.new(**target_hash, **update_hash).
  insert_conflict(target: target_hash.keys, update: update_hash).
  save_changes

This unfortunately throws a Sequel::ValidationFailed error:

Sequel::ValidationFailed: email is already taken

Is there any good way to avoid this knowing that we are ignoring the uniqueness of email in this case via insert_conflict?

Workaround 1: Skip Validate In Specific Cases (like new?)

A workaround I came up with is to define the User model validate method as the following instead:

class User < Sequel.Model($db[:users])
  def validate
    super
    validates_unique :email unless new?
  end
end

However, this is not ideal as this workaround skips validation regardless of insert_conflict being present or not 😦 .

Workaround 2: Disable Validation in save_changes

We could also do this:

User.new(**target_hash, **update_hash).
  insert_conflict(target: target_hash.keys, update: update_hash).
  save_changes(validate: false)

However, we would then miss out on other forms of validation unfortunately.

[janko]

Seems like it would be nice if the insert_conflict plugin could let you know when it has been activated. Currently, you should be able to do:

validates_unique :email unless @insert_conflict_opts

But that seems like accessing private API of the plugin. Maybe if it provided a method like:

def insert_conflict?
  !!@insert_conflict_opts
end

[jvanderen1]

That would be great. I would love for it to be smart enough to automatically detect unique containt values with insert_conflict, but that may be difficult.