Manually creating a version saves the object with nil attributes

[abhinav-shrivastava]

I'm using rails 5.1 with postgres database.

My use case involves creating versions when I explicitly want to instead of on callbacks like on: [:update] or something.

I did so by adding on: [] in my my_model.rb and using paper_trail.touch_with_version on my model instance. The problem is whenever I do this the first time the version is saved with nil attributes. Weird enough, the next time call paper_trail.touch_with_version it saves it correctly with all attributes correctly initialised.

Sample logs from my rails console:

document = Document.first
 #<Document:0x0000123456
id: 1,
name: "Sample document">

document.paper_trail.touch_with_version

document.versions.last.reify.name
=> nil

document.paper_trail.touch_with_version

document.versions.last.reify.name
=> "Sample document"

[jaredbeck]

Thanks for the bug report. Per our contributing guide please use
our bug report template.

[jaredbeck]

Are you still working on this? Want me to keep it open?

[abhinav-shrivastava]

I am able to reproduce the issue, I was wondering if this is intentional like the issue #43.

require "bundler/inline"

gemfile(true) do
  ruby "2.4.2"
  source "https://rubygems.org"
  gem "activerecord", "5.1.4"
  gem "minitest", "5.10.3"
  gem "paper_trail", "8.0.0", require: false
  gem "sqlite3"
  gem "byebug", "9.1.0"
end

require "active_record"
require "minitest/autorun"
require "logger"

ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(adapter: "sqlite3", database: ":memory:")
ActiveRecord::Base.logger = nil
ActiveRecord::Schema.define do
  create_table :users, force: true do |t|
    t.text :first_name, null: false
    t.timestamps null: false
  end

  create_table :versions do |t|
    t.string :item_type, null: false
    t.integer :item_id, null: false
    t.string :event, null: false
    t.string :whodunnit
    t.text :object, limit: 1_073_741_823
    t.text :object_changes, limit: 1_073_741_823
    t.integer :transaction_id
    t.datetime :created_at
  end
  add_index :versions, %i[item_type item_id]
  add_index :versions, [:transaction_id]
end

ActiveRecord::Base.logger = Logger.new(STDOUT)
require "paper_trail/config"

PaperTrail::Config.instance.track_associations = false

require "paper_trail"

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_paper_trail on: []
end

class BugTest < ActiveSupport::TestCase
  def test_1
    user = User.create(first_name: "Jane")
    user.paper_trail.touch_with_version
    user_from_paper_trail = PaperTrail::Version.first.reify
    assert_equal("Jane", user_from_paper_trail.first_name)
  end
end

[jaredbeck]

Hi Abhinav,

Interesting. The documentation for touch_with_version says:

Mimics the touch method from ActiveRecord::Persistence,
but also creates a version. A version is created regardless of
options such as :on, :if, or :unless.

It doesn't say anything about what goes in the version record, so we expect it to work the same as any other "update" event. So, we expect it to record the user's first_name. Looks like a bug to me.

As a workaround, you could install the update callback,

-has_paper_trail on: []
+has_paper_trail on: [:update]

I'm not sure what the real fix for this problem should be. Any ideas?

[jaredbeck]

I'm not sure what the real fix for this problem should be. Any ideas?

Ah. I see that #1048 is your suggestion.

[jaredbeck]

Fixed by #1060, will release as 9.0.0.