Forum: Ruby on Rails db setup,active record

my app has user, photo, and state models.
a user belongs to a state and thusly has a state_id field,
a user has many photos.
I have the photos view set up as the home page.
I am trying to set up a select tag and form tag to filter through the
photos by which state is selected.
My files are:

view

  <%= form_tag photos_path, :method => 'get' do%>

          <%= select("state", "name", State.all.collect(&:name)) %>
    <%= submit_tag "State" %>
  <% end %>



controller

  if (params[:state] )
        statesmen = State.find_by_name(params[:state][:name]).users
        statesmen.each do |person|
          @photos = @photos <<  Photo.where(:user_id => person.id)
        end
  else .....

My questions are 1
Is there a better way to collect the photos?  Theres gotta be.  Should I
just give the photo a state_id field?

and 2
Why can't I do it this way

On Sunday, July 29, 2012 12:08:09 AM UTC+1, Ruby-Forum.com User wrote:
>
>   if (params[:state] )
>
If you added a has_many :photos, :through => :users associations to 
State
then you should be able to do state.photos


> and 2
> Why can't I do it this way
>
> Well you haven't said what's not working, but at a guess it's because
you're just assigning to @photos again and again rather than addinging 
the
individuals results together

Fred