Question

I am not sure how to figure this one out, because I dont know how I would update my intermediary table, without having to do delete_all. Or where to do inserts and deletes, etc.
I have three classes:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :players
  has_many :teams, :through => :players 
end

class Team < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :players
end

class Player < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :team
  belongs_to :user
   (contains other columns like, is_captain, has_paid, etc.)
end

I am displaying a page with checkboxes and you can select which ‘users’ you would like to be on your team (from your AddressBook). So imagine 25 names listed, and some of them are already checked and others are not. How could I save the data of checkboxes, cause they may have 3 different states: 1) insert brand new player (insert row into player) 2) remove player from team (delete existing player) or 3)do nothing (a player you dont want on your team)

The issue i am running into is that when you ‘uncheck’ a box, then the front-end does not send that to back-end? Any ideas how this can be done nicely?

Answer 1

Not sure if this is the best way to do this but it works, I am open to recommendations in improving this code

    params[:team][:user_ids] ||= []
    @team = Team.find(params[:team][:id])
    current_players = @team.players
    current_players_user_ids = current_players.collect { |player| player.user_id }
    user_ids = params[:team][:user_ids]
    puts "input ids #{user_ids}"
    #add current_user because checkbox does not pass them in since its 'disabled'
    user_ids << current_user.id

    #delete the current_players that are not in the the received 'checkboxes'
    current_players_user_ids.each do |current_player_user_id|
      unless user_ids.include?(current_player_user_id)
        Player.delete_all(:team_id => @team.id, :user_id => current_player_user_id)
      end
    end

    #iterate through input ids and run 'inserts' on those who are not current-players
    user_ids.each do |user_id|
      unless current_players_user_ids.include?(user_id)
        player = Player.new(:user_id=>user_id, :team_id=>@team.id)
        @team.players << player
      end
    end