Question

I’m implementing my own user messaging feature in my application, but I’m having difficulty retaining the receiver_id.

User model:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
    has_many :tickets
    has_many :sent_messages, :class_name => 'Message', :foreign_key => 'sender_id', :dependent => :destroy
    has_many :received_messages, :class_name => 'Message', :foreign_key => 'receiver_id', :dependent => :destroy
end

Message model:

class Message < ActiveRecord::Base
    belongs_to :sender, :class_name => 'User', :foreign_key => 'sender_id'
    belongs_to :receiver, :class_name => 'User', :foreign_key => 'receiver_id'
end

Message controller:

def new
    @user = User.find( params[:user_id] )
    @message = Message.new( 
      :receiver => @user )
end

def create
    @message = current_user.sent_messages.create( params[:message] )
    redirect_to( tickets_path, :message => 'Message has been sent.' )
end

receiver_id in the db remains null.

Thanks for the help!

EDIT

Routes question here – ticket has users that can send messages – rails messaging

Answer 1

HTTP is stateless, so each request knows nothing about the one(s) before it. Thus, setting an attribute when calling Message.new in the controller doesn’t carry over to the create request on its own—you need to have a hidden form field containing it. Assuming you’re using form_for, it would be something like so:

<%= f.hidden_field :receiver_id %>