Question

I have a dwelling object that is built on a user.

Dwellings Controller (create action)

# dwellings_controller.rb
def create
  @dwelling = current_user.properties.build(params[:dwelling])

  if @dwelling.save
    current_user.dwelling = @dwelling
    if current_user.save!
      flash[:success] = "Woohoo! Your dwelling has been created. Welcome home!"
    else
      flash[:notice] = "You have successfully created a dwelling, but something prevented us from adding you as a roomie. Please email support so we can try to correct this for you."
    end
      redirect_to current_user
    else
      render 'new'
    end
  end

The dwelling_id is not being saved to the current_user record. To get more information, I added the bang method (as shown above) to the current_user.save! command. Rails complains that the user‘s password is required to update the record, as shown below.

ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid in DwellingsController#create

Validation failed: Password can't be blank, Password is too short (minimum is 6 characters), Password confirmation can't be blank

If providing the user’s password through a hidden field isn’t the correct solution – and it does seem insecure – how can I correct this problem? Relevant sections of the user and dwelling model shown below.

#dwelling.rb
class Dwelling < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :street_address, :city, :state, :zip, :nickname

  belongs_to :owner, :class_name => "User", :foreign_key => "owner_id"
  has_many :roomies, :class_name => "User"

#user.rb
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :email, :first_name, :last_name, :password, :password_confirmation, :zip, :dwelling_id
  has_secure_password

  before_save { |user| user.email = email.downcase }
  before_save :create_remember_token

  belongs_to :dwelling
  has_many :properties, :class_name => "Dwelling", :foreign_key => "owner_id"

Answer 1

Turns out the problem was stemming from my validations in the User model. The presence and length validations on password and password_confirmation were being imposed on user.save, which was failing as password and password_confirmation were not being provided. My update validations appear below.

User Model

#user.rb
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :email, :first_name, :last_name, :password, :password_confirmation, :zip, :dwelling_id
  has_secure_password

  before_save { |user| user.email = email.downcase }
  before_create :create_remember_token

  belongs_to :dwelling
  has_many :properties, :class_name => "Dwelling", :foreign_key => "owner_id"

  validates :first_name, presence: true, length: { maximum: 50 }
  validates :last_name, presence: true, length: { maximum: 50 }
  VALID_EMAIL_REGEX = /\A[\w+\-.]+@[a-z\d\-.]+\.[a-z]+\z/i
  validates :email, presence: true, 
                format: { with: VALID_EMAIL_REGEX },
                uniqueness: { case_sensitive: false }
  validates :password, presence: { :on => :create }, length: { minimum: 6, :on => :create }
  validates :password_confirmation, presence: { :on => :create }

With this updated implementation, the user is successfully saved and the appropriate attributes are updated. This is a secondary issue stemming from this original question: In Rails, how can I automatically update a User to own a newly created object of another class within the new object's Create method?