Question

I need to design a form for a account resource. In that form, i need to collect some set of ids as an array in the params hash in attribute called relationships.

So the final params[account] hash from the POST request should be like:

{:name => 'somename', :relationships => ["123", "23", "23445"]}

How shall I design the form_for fields? I tried this, but didn’t work:

<%= form_for @account do |f| %>
    <%= f.text_field :name %>

    <% @eligible_parents.each do |p| %>
        <%= f.check_box "relationships", nil, :value => p.id  %>
        <b><%= p.name %></b><br/>
      </span>
    <% end %>

    <%= f.submit "Submit" %>
<% end %>

Number of elements in @eligible_parents varies every time.

relationships is neither an association nor an attribute in account model.

I have to use virtual attributes but I need to fill in an array from a form.

Please help. How can I do this?

Answer 1

You still need a fields_for in your view, just use :relationships as the record_name then provide an object.

<%= form_for @account do |f| %>
    <%= f.text_field :name %>

    <% fields_for :relationships, @eligible_parents do |p| %>
        <%= p.check_box "relationships", nil, :value => p.object.id  %>
        <b><%= p.object.name %></b><br/>
    <% end %>

    <%= f.submit "Submit" %>
<% end %>

Documentation here: ActionView::Helpers::FormHelper