Question

I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing.. I have a vague Idea. I’m hoping I did this all right so far.

Any way you can see to refactor this would be greatly appreciated.

One thing I noticed it does wrong is it won’t load the proper options that were previously submitted if there is an error and it posts to the same URL. The text inputs seem to load the previous value but the select and the radio buttons reset to the default every submit.

ResourcesController#new

 def new
    @resource = Resource.new
    @title = "Submit Resource"
    @categories = Category.all
 end

ResourcesController#create (notice I have @categories = Category.all in both… according to DRY im not sure where else it should go, or it only works on the first form submit.

  def create
    @title = "Submit Resource"
    @categories = Category.all

    @resource = Resource.new(params[:resource])

    category_ids = @categories.map { |c| c[1] }

    if @resource.valid? and category_ids.include? params[:category_id]
      @resource.cost = params[:cost]
      @resource.category_id = params[:category_id]
      @resource.save
      redirect_to root_url
    else
      render :action => :new
    end 
  end

Resource.rb (model)

# == Schema Information
#
# Table name: resources
#
#  id          :integer         not null, primary key
#  upvotes     :integer         default(0)
#  downvotes   :integer         default(0)
#  url         :string(255)
#  title       :string(255)
#  cost        :integer         default(0)
#  description :text
#  flags       :integer
#  category_id :integer
#  user_id     :integer
#  created_at  :datetime        not null
#  updated_at  :datetime        not null
#

class Resource < ActiveRecord::Base

  belongs_to :category
  belongs_to :user
  has_many :favorites
  has_many :resource_tags
  has_many :tags, :through => :resource_tags

  attr_accessible :url, :title, :cost, :description, :category_id, :user_id

  # Pseudo-Enum
  COST = [:free, :paid, :both]

  url_regex = /^(?:http|https):\/\/[a-z0-9]+([\-\.]{1}[a-z0-9]+)*\.[a-z]{2,6}(:[0-9]{1,5})?(\/.*)?$/ix

  validates :url,         :presence => true,
                          :format   => { :with => url_regex, 
                                         :message  => "must be valid"},
                          :uniqueness => { :case_sensitive => false,
                                           :message => "has already been submitted"}
  validates :title,       :presence => true,
                          :length   => { :within => 6..75 }
  validates :cost,        :presence => true
  validates :description, :presence => true,
                          :length   => { :within => 25..200 }
  validates :category_id, :presence => true,
                          :format   => { :with => /\d+/ }
  validates :user_id,     :presence => true,
                          :format   => { :with => /\d+/ }

  def cost
    COST[read_attribute(:cost)]
  end

  def cost=(value)
    write_attribute(:cost, COST.index(value.downcase.to_sym))
  end

  def category_id
    read_attribute(:category_id).to_i
  end

  def category_id=(value)
    write_attribute(:category_id, value.to_i)
  end

end

My view file for the Resource#new form

  <div class="field">
    <%= f.label :category %>
    <%= select_tag(:category_id, options_for_select(@categories.map {|c|[c.name, c.id]})) %> 
  </div>

Last Q: i havent worked with the user_id field yet. This is going to be pulled from devise and will associate a User with a submitted resource. But how do I assign this without making some sort of input, like a hidden input. Would this go on behind the scenes in the controller?

Answer 1

To your last question:

devise adds a current_user method which is the logged in user. So if a user has multiple resources you could do something like:

@resource = current_user.resources.new(params[:resource])

First question:

When a form is rendered it is done so based on the @resource & @categories variables. When you post the form the create action is called which creates a new @resource. If the save fails for whatever reason the form is rerendered using the new @resource variable. The problem you have is that @resource.category is not set when you show the form again. So you’ll have to do this before the is_valid? check.

 def create
    @title = "Submit Resource"
    @categories = Category.all

    @resource = Resource.new(params[:resource])
    @resource.category = Category.find(params[:category_id])

    if @resource.valid? # won't be valid if there is no category found.
      @resource.cost = params[:cost]
      @resource.save
      redirect_to root_url
    else
      render :action => :new
    end 
  end

But the real problem is with your form. It should nest the category_id in the resource params so that the category is set when you do Resource.new(params[:resource]).

Check the POST request body in your console or something and see if it’s nested in the resource or not. I don’t know the exact syntax for it but if you change this you can drop the @resource.category = Category.find line.