Question

i have this form_for sending a private message between two users on my users#show template

<%= form_for([current_user, @message])  do |f| %>
    <%= f.hidden_field :to_id, :value => @user.id %>
    <div class="message_field">
        <%= f.text_area :content, placeholder: "Send a private message..." %>
    </div>
   <%= f.submit "Post", class: "btn btn-large btn-primary" %>
   <span class="message_countdown"></span>
<% end %>

and in my message model, i have

belongs_to  :to,
    :class_name => 'User',
    :foreign_key => :to_id

validates :content, presence: true, length: { maximum: 1000 }
validates :user_id, :to_id, presence: true

what is weird is that the very first time a user gets created and they navigate to their show profile,

they already get this error

The form contains 2 errors.
* Content can't be blank
* To can't be blank

once i refresh the page, they disappear. and the form functions normally. i can’t seem to figure out what is wrong. does the form already try to auto submit by itself?

on my messages#create action i have

def create
    @message = current_user.messages.build
    @message.to_id = params[:message][:to_id]
    @message.user_id = current_user.id
    @message.content = params[:message][:content]
    if @message.save
        flash[:success ] = "Private Message Sent"
    end
        redirect_to user_path(params[:message][:to_id])
end

if that sheds any light. im manually assigning the @msessage attributes because i didn’t want to make :user_id attr_accessible.

but still, why does the validation already fail just by going to the page the very first time? im not submitting. once i leave the page and come back to it, the error doesn’t occur anymore.

here is my users#show action

  def show
    @user = User.find(params[:id])
    @microposts = @user.microposts.paginate(page: params[:page])
    @current_user = current_user
    if user_signed_in?
        @message = current_user.messages.build(params[:messages], to_id: @user.id)
    end
    @influence = current_user.points
    @badge_items = current_user.badges.to_a.map(&:name)
  end

does it have to do something with my show action? specifically

@message = current_user.messages.build(params[:messages], to_id: @user.id)

is that calling a create?

help would be appreciated. thank you!

UPDATE. i fixed it!

instead of…

@message = current_user.messages.build(params[:messages], to_id: @user.id)

i just did

@message = current_user.messages.build

i guess the issue was more of…it was looking for the messages value and the user id, which there isnt any yet passed. thank you!

Answer 1

Yes,

@message = current_user.messages.build(params[:messages], to_id: @user.id)

is attempting to create a Message object.

Here’s a link to the Rails guide on has_many that describes the specifics of how messages.build will be building a new record.

http://guides.rubyonrails.org/association_basics.html#has_many-association-reference