Question

I have three models, Account, User and Contact:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_one :account

  has_many :contacts, :through => :account
end

class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :owner, :class_name => 'User'

  has_many :contacts
end

class Contact < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :account
end

I’m trying to scope build a new contact through the user record, like this in my contacts controller.

def create
    @contact = current_user.contacts.build(params[:contact])

    respond_to do |format|
      if @contact.save
        ...
      else
        ...
      end
    end
end

When I do this, I don’t receive any errors, the contact record is saved to the database however the account_id column is not set on the contact, and it is not added to the collection so calling @current_user.contacts returns an empty collection.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Using build makes a new instance of Contact in memory, but you would need to manually set the account_id on the record (e.g. @contact.account_id = current_user.account.id), or perhaps set it in a hidden field in the new form used to display the contact for creation such that it is picked up in the params array passed to the build method.

You might also want to consider whether accepts_nested_attributes_for may be helpful in this case. Another option may be to use delegate, although in both cases, your use may be sort of the opposite of what these are intended for (typically defined on the “parent”).

Update:
In your case, the build method is added to both the User instance and to the Account (maybe “Owner”) instance, because you have both a many-to-many relationship between User and Contact, as well as a one-to-many relationship between Account and Contact. So to get the account_id I think you would need to call Account’s build, like

@contact = current_user.accounts.contacts.build(params[:contact])

Does this work?