Question

I have two models, Item and Bid

class Item
  include Mongoid::Document
  field :name, type: String
  has_many :bids 
end

class Bid
  include Mongoid::Document
  include Mongoid::Timestamps::Created
  field :bid, type: Float
  field :bidder, type: String
  belongs_to :item  
end

In views/prices/index I would like to list all items in a table and for each item put a field next it in which people can enter a number. At the bottom of the form should be a submit button for all records.

How is this best achieved?

There’s plenty of code out there explaining how to add, for instance, several questions to one survey (http://railscasts.com/episodes/196-nested-model-form-part-1) but I couldn’t find an example that shows how to add one new record for each of an existing element of a collection.

Answer 1

I don’t think you need to dynamically add a form for each item if you know you are going to use all of the items there to begin with.

Quick and Dirty:

form_for(@items) do |f|
  @items.each do |item|
    f.label item.name
    f.text_field item.name.to_sym, :value => "1"
  end
  f.submit "Submit"
end

I haven’t tried this and that code isn’t tested, but I would assume if you do some work in the controller to build each bid it should be fine. Also amount would be a better variable name for the bid class than using Bid.bid.

The proper way to do this (which would also allow updates) would be to make a nested form and then use fields_for method to actually look at a live bid object: http://archives.ryandaigle.com/articles/2009/2/1/what-s-new-in-edge-rails-nested-attributes