validate_length_of :maximum fails on nil/empty value

forgive me as I'm new to rails bugtracking.

the last bug I saw opened was http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticke..., which was open and is still unresolved.

but when using validates_length_of, and :maximum, if the value of the field is blank, rails throws an activerecord error "field is too long".

the only way to get around it is to also specify

:allow_nil => true, :allow_blank => true

Which, to me, shouldn't be necessary.

The strange thing is that the test in active record does not produce this problem. I would be happy to look into it if this is a known problem still.