Question

I have a typical CRUD app, I would like to add a link next to the f.submit that allows you to go back to the index without saving changes. I thought it would be as simple as just making a link to the index, but it’s saving changes anyway.

<%= button_to 'Close Without Saving', users_path %>
<%= f.submit %>

What’s the rails way of handling this?

Answer 1

From the fine manual:

[button_to] Generates a form containing a single button that submits to the URL created by the set of options.

So using button_to inside a form will attempt to create a nested form but HTML forms don’t nest. The result will be an HTML structure something like this:

<form>
    <form><!-- from button_to -->
        <input type="submit">
    </form>
    <input type="submit"><!-- from f.submit -->
</form>

But the browser will ignore the inner <form> and assume you meant this:

<form>
    <input type="submit"><!-- from button_to -->
    <input type="submit"><!-- from f.submit -->
</form>

Then pressing either <input type="submit"> will submit the outer form.

You can either create another submit button in the outer form and the controller can check which button was pressed or you can use link_to and style the link to match your submit button (or leave it styled like a link depending on your preference).