Question

I have a form in an account_settings controller that updates a user object through the users_controller. The error messages are not getting passed through. Here’s a look at the code.

account_settings/account.html.haml

= form_for @user, :url => { :controller => "users", :action => "update", :id => @user.id } do |f|
  - if @user.errors.any?
    .alert.alert-error
      %h4
        Please address the following errors:
      %ul
        - @user.errors.full_messages.each do |msg|
          %li= msg
  form stuff...

account_settings_controller

def account
  @user = current_user
end

users_controller

def update
  @user = User.find(params[:id])
  if @user.update_attributes(params[:user])
    flash[:notice] = "User was successfully updated."
  end
  redirect_to :back
end

The form will not update but there are no error messages getting passed back. Any thoughts?

Answer 1

This happens because you are returning a redirecting. The @user object does not persist across the redirect. You should be doing something like:

def update
  @user = User.find(params[:id])
  if @user.update_attributes(params[:user])
    flash[:notice] = "User was successfully updated."
    redirect_to :back
  else
    render :edit
  end
end

Here, we redirect when the update is successful, but if not, we render the edit action. Hence we have access to @user, and your errors would be present in @user.errors