Question

I have an object called Job that belong to another object
called client in a many relationship.

Here’s my job model

class Job < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :client
end

Here’s my Client model

class Client < ActiveRecord::Base 
  has_many :jobs
end

For a new job, I simply want to assign it during creation to a client.

When I try to create a new job however. All im seeing in my view is the id of the job instead of the name and the internals of the created model are also empty.

When I try to edit the job and save it again im recieving the following error.

Client(#2157214400) expected, got String(#2151988620)

Application Trace | Framework Trace | Full Trace
app/controllers/jobs_controller.rb:61:in `block in update'
app/controllers/jobs_controller.rb:60:in `update'

I guess this could be because my controller is wrong in some way but this is my first app so im not quite sure where to look.

Here’s my controller.

class JobsController < ApplicationController

    def index
      @job = Job.all

      respond_to do |format|
        format.html # index.html.erb
        format.json { render json: @job }
      end
    end

    def show
      @job = Job.find(params[:id])

      respond_to do |format|
        format.html # show.html.erb
        format.json { render json: @job }
      end
    end

    def new
      @job = Job.new(params[:id])

      respond_to do |format|
        format.html # new.html.erb
        format.json { render json: @job }
      end
    end

    def edit
      @job = Job.find(params[:id])
    end

    def create
      @job = Job.new(params[:jobs])

      respond_to do |format|
        if @job.save
          format.html { redirect_to @job, notice: 'job was successfully created.' }
          format.json { render json: @job, status: :created, location: @job }
        else
          format.html { render action: "new" }
          format.json { render json: @job.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
        end
      end
    end

    def update
      @job = Job.find(params[:id])

      respond_to do |format|
        if @job.update_attributes(params[:job])
          format.html { redirect_to @job, notice: 'job was successfully updated.' }
          format.json { head :no_content }
        else
          format.html { render action: "edit" }
          format.json { render json: @job.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
        end
      end
    end

    def destroy
      @job = Job.find(params[:id])
      @job.destroy

      respond_to do |format|
        format.html { redirect_to :jobs }
        format.json { head :no_content }
      end
    end
  end

Any pointers or a nod in the right direction would be appreciated.

Answer 1

The problem is because Activerecord expected an instance of Client object , and it has method client= (because belogs_to association)
When you bind AR object from request you should use client_id parameter instead of client

you can read about http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Associations/ClassMethods.html#method-i-belongs_to

if client count is short you can use select with client_id as name
Example http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/FormOptionsHelper.html

so you can do something like that

select("job", "client_id", Client.all.collect {|c| [ c.name, c.id ] }, {:include_blank => 'None'})

instead of

 f.text_field :client, :class => 'text_field'