Question

Apologies in advance for the total beginner question, but since I am a beginner here goes: In my Rails 3 app I have an attribute on my Profile model for :subject. In my form, I have the following code for the user to assign the :subject:

<%= f.select :profile_subject, options_for_select([['Select', 0], ['Arts', 1], ['Biology', 2], ['Business', 3], ['Chemistry', 4], ['English', 5], ['Foreign Language', 6], ['Government', 7], ['Health', 8], ['History', 9], ['Math', 10], ['Physics', 11], ['Vocational', 12]]) %>

I want to utilize the :subject strings for two things really:

1. To render in my view
2. To use in a search form (I’m using Ransack for the search)

I don’t think I set this up in my database (or built the form) properly, as I only appear to be storing the id (“ex: 1”) and not the string (“ex: Arts”). Before I remove the option id though, I’m curious: For something like this, is it considered good practice to include an option id as well as a string in the select? Or strip the id and just keep it as an array of strings only?

The reason for asking all this is regarding my search form. As I mentioned I’m using Ransack, and I’m just not sure how to make the f.select work with just a bunch of strings.

Answer 1

First, I hadn’t set this up properly in my db. So I corrected the form so the :subject stored was a string. Here’s the new form:

<%= f.select :subject, options_for_select([['Select', ''], ['Arts'], ['Biology'], ['Business'], ['Chemistry'], ['English'], ['Foreign Language'], ['Government'], ['Health'], ['History'], ['Math'], ['Physics'], ['Vocational']], :selected => @profile.subject) %>

Then for the search form I just had to add a predicate _eq:

<%= f.select :profile_subject_eq, options_for_select([['Select', ''], ['Arts'], ['Biology'], ['Business'], ['Chemistry'], ['English'], ['Foreign Language'], ['Government'], ['Health'], ['History'], ['Math'], ['Physics'], ['Vocational']], :selected => :profile_subject) %>

And now it works.