# Ajax complex forms: checkbox weirdness **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [October 10, 2008, 4:30am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ajax-complex-forms-checkbox-weirdness/150576 "2008-10-10T04:30:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Danimal)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2008, 4:30am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ajax-complex-forms-checkbox-weirdness/150576/1 "2008-10-10T04:30:47Z")
Hello! Question for you wizards… If you’ve used Ryan B. tutorial on complex forms: > **[\#75 Complex Forms Part 3 - RailsCasts](http://railscasts.com/episodes/75-complex-forms-part-3)** > > Short Ruby on Rails screencasts containing tips, tricks and tutorials. Great for both novice and experienced web developers. … or better yet, the one from Advanced Rails Recipes… perhaps you can help me. I set up a complex form for an Account that has many Formats which works nearly the same as the ARR example of Project has\_many Tasks. One thing that is breaking, though, is the use of checkboxes in the Formats partial. The problem is that when I add a partial, Rails puts the hidden checkbox with value “0” in there… but this then gets passed in as another attribute set, so my virtual attribute methods bomb. For example, if I have a Format that has: Name (string), Description (text) and Active (boolean), then when I submit the form, I should get: params[:account][:new\_format\_attribute] = [{:name =\> “foo”, :description =\> “bar”, :active =\> “1”}] Instead, I get: params[:account][:new\_format\_attribute] = [{:name =\> “foo”, :description =\> “bar”, :active =\> “1”}, {:active =\> “0”}] You see? It’s adding the hidden value of active in as a separate attribute hash. Any ideas on how to skip this? Or should I just skip the Rails checkbox helper and code my own? Thanks for any tips! -Danimal ---
**Author:** ![Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Danimal)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2008, 4:31am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ajax-complex-forms-checkbox-weirdness/150576/2 "2008-10-10T04:31:58Z")
BTW, it’s actually: params[:account][:new\_format\_attributes] = … (“attributes” not “attribute”)… that was just my poor typing. Thanks, -Danimal ---
**Author:** ![Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Danimal)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2008, 10:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ajax-complex-forms-checkbox-weirdness/150576/3 "2008-10-10T22:27:22Z")
I don’t suppose it’s as simple as not calling the check\_box helper from the form object you’re getting out of fields\_for is it? I would guess that’s what would happen if you did… ---
**Author:** ![Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Danimal)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2008, 2:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ajax-complex-forms-checkbox-weirdness/150576/4 "2008-10-11T02:00:32Z")
On Oct 10, 9:26 pm, “Pardee, Roy” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I don’t suppose it’s as simple as not calling the check\_box helper from the form object you’re getting out of fields\_for is it? I would guess that’s what would happen if you did… Nope, it’s a known complication of the way the check\_box helper works: it doesn’t mix well with arrays. either use check\_box\_tag (but lose the convenience of having 0 submitted when the check\_box is unchecked) or use a hash rather than an array. Fred ---
**Author:** ![Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Danimal)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2008, 2:04am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ajax-complex-forms-checkbox-weirdness/150576/5 "2008-10-11T02:04:38Z")
_sigh_ I wish there was an option on the helper. Oh well. I ended up leaving things as-is on the view and just handling it on the model. It’s not ideal, but it works. Basically, as I read through the array of attribute hash sets, I only process them if it’s a full set… i.e., in the above case, if there is no key :name (which is required), then I skip processing the hash. Eventually, I might consider a better solution… perhaps overriding the checkbox helper to provide an option to suppress the hidden tag or something like that. -Danimal On Oct 10, 6:00 pm, Frederick C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)