Question

I’m searching a solution to have a pre-validation for a nested resource before the submition of an entire form in rails and don’t have a clue on the correct design.

So I have a simple User model that has_one :place being accepted for nested attributes:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
   ...

   has_one :place, :dependent => :destroy
   accepts_nested_attributes_for :place
   attr_accessible :place_attributes
   ...
end

The Place model contains attributes such as :street_number, :street, :postal_code, :city, :country.

I’d like to setup a form for the edit of user so that he can introduce the place. Before submit, I’d like to give the user the opportunity to validate the place. So I set up a custom action in the PlaceController.

# place_controller.rb
class PlaceController < ApplicationController
   ...
   def validate
      # code for validation
   end
 end

By the way I defined the routes for the place as follow:

# route.rb
resources :users do
  resource :place do
    match 'validate', :to => 'place#validate'
  end
end

Then in the view I set up the form:

<%= form_for(:user, :url => edit_user_path(@user), :html => {:method => :put, :multipart => true}) do |f| %>
 <%= f.text_field :name %>
 # other fields for users
 ...
 <%= f.fields_for :place do |builder| %>
   <%= render 'places/form', :f => builder %>
 <% end %>

 <%= f.submit "Update" %>

And the partial places/form manages the fields for the nested attributes of place:

<%= f.text_field :street_number %>
<%= f.text_field :street %> 
...

Here is the point: I’d like to have a submit or link to call the validate action with the attributes of the place model.
I tried something like:

<%= link_to 'Validate', validate_user_place_path(@user, :format => :js, :params_to_validate => f.object), :remote => true %>

Even if it calls correctly the controller, I don’t get the attributes to be validated in the controller.

What shall I do?

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

To my-self:

I finally made it by adding two simple buttons in the form with a name to one of the button in order to identify the action taken. I just followed the idea behind the following railscast: Railscast 38 .

So in the view:

<%= f.submit 'Validate', :name => 'validate_place' %>
<%= f.submit 'Update' %>

And in the User controller, I check for the button in the update action:

def update

 if params[:validate_place] 
    #validation of place is performed

 else
    #user is updated
 end
end

The only missing point is that it is not ajax base. What a pitty!

Cheers…

I’m a poor lonesome cowboy…