Question

This might be impossible to answer since there are probably too many variables here, but I thought I’d give it a shot since I always find other answers here. I am still fairly new to rails.

So, I have a bills model/controller/view. I want to create a new bill. I will be editing out the things that shouldn’t matter much, but if they are needed I can add them in – just don’t want a wall of text.

In the route:

map.resources :bills

My new method in the controller:

def new
    @bill = Bill.new
    @submit_txt = "Create"

    respond_to do |format|
      format.html # new.html.erb
      format.xml  { render :xml => @bill }
    end
  end

my form:

<% form_for(@bill) do |f| %>
        <%= f.error_messages %>
 ### form elements here, this all seems fine ####
        <p>
          <%= f.submit @submit_txt %>
        </p>
    <% end %>

my create method in the controller:

def create
    is_weekly = false
    is_monthly = false

    @bill = current_user.recurring_bills.build(params[:bill])
    @bill.year = @current_year

    @errors = 'checking this out'

    if @errors.blank?
      logger.info "no errors, supposedly; going to save"

     ### do saving stuff here####
    else
      logger.info "errors not blank"
      render :action => :new
    end
end

For some reason this always renders /bills instead of /bills/new. It used to work and I don’t know what I did wrong, but now it’s not. I get the same response with render :template => ‘bills/new’. It goes to the right page with a redirect, but then it won’t fill in the form with old values.

The log:

Processing BillsController#create (for 127.0.0.1 at 2010-07-21 21:00:47) [POST]
  Parameters: {"commit"=>"Create", "action"=>"create", "authenticity_token"=>"Kc7/iPKbfJBKHHVARuN7K6207tW6Jx4OUn7Xb4uSB8A=", "bill"=>{"name"=>"rent", "month"=>"", "amount"=>"200", "alternator"=>"odd", "day"=>"35", "frequency"=>"monthly", "weekday"=>""}, "controller"=>"bills"}
  User Load (0.6ms)   SELECT * FROM "users" WHERE ("users"."remember_token" = 'dd7082c56f5a252d14e4e68c528eb26551875c647f998c15d16a064cb075d63c') LIMIT 1
errors not blank
Rendering template within layouts/application
Rendering bills/new
Rendered bills/_form (14.5ms)
Rendered layouts/_stylesheets (3.3ms)
Rendered layouts/_header (5.7ms)
Rendered layouts/_footer (0.3ms)
Completed in 174ms (View: 30, DB: 1) | 200 OK [http://localhost/bills]

Hopefully someone has an idea of what I’ve done wrong, or I guess I’m starting over.

Answer 1

run a rake:routes from your command line and you will see how they map.

    bills GET    /bills(.:format)          {:controller=>"bills", :action=>"index"}
          POST   /bills(.:format)          {:controller=>"bills", :action=>"create"}
 new_bill GET    /bills/new(.:format)      {:controller=>"bills", :action=>"new"}
edit_bill GET    /bills/:id/edit(.:format) {:controller=>"bills", :action=>"edit"}
     bill GET    /bills/:id(.:format)      {:controller=>"bills", :action=>"show"}
          PUT    /bills/:id(.:format)      {:controller=>"bills", :action=>"update"}
          DELETE /bills/:id(.:format)      {:controller=>"bills", :action=>"destroy"}

The RESTful resources take a little getting used to but in your case \bills with a post method goes to the create action. You are specifying in the create action to render the contents of the new template when you call render :action => :new – you do not actually run the action.