Question

When I submit this form, it is creating 2 identical records in the Members table (the fields_for part of the form). Please help me understand why that is happening.

The basic setup is: a Comp has many Teams and a Team has many Members. When creating a new Team, the first Member created should be the team’s secretary (which means the secretary_flag field in the Members table should be set to TRUE.) This form below is supposed to create a new Team, create the first team member, and mark that team member as the secretary.

The controller:

def new
  @comp = Comp.find(params[:comp_id])    
  @team = @comp.teams.new
  @team.members.build  
end

def create
  @comp = Comp.find(params[:comp_id])
  @team = @comp.teams.create(params[:team])
  if @team.update_attributes(params[:team])
      flash[:success] = "Team added successfully."
      redirect_to new_comp_team_member_path(@comp,@team)
  else
      render 'new' 
  end
end

The form view:

<%= form_for [@comp,@team] do |builder| %>
    <%= builder.label :team_name, "Team name" %>
    <%= builder.text_field :team_name %>        
    <%= builder.fields_for :members do |f| %>
        <%= f.label :member_email, "Email address of team secretary" %>
        <%= f.text_field :member_email %> 
        <%= f.hidden_field :secretary_flag, :value => 1 %>
    <% end %>

<%= builder.submit "Create new team" %> 

<% end %> 

And in my routes:

resources :comps do
    resources :teams do 
        resources :members
    end 
end

And in my models:

comp.rb:

attr_accessible :teams_attributes
has_many :teams, :dependent => :destroy
accepts_nested_attributes_for :teams, :allow_destroy => :true

team.rb:

attr_accessible :members_attributes
belongs_to :comp
has_many :members
accepts_nested_attributes_for :members

member.rb:

 belongs_to :team

Answer 1

The solution I figured out was very basic. In my create action I accidentally put:

if @team.update_attributes(params[:team])

when it should have been:

if @team.save(params[:team])

I still don’t understand why that would have created 2 identical records though, but it now works.