Code to Literal Translation

Rails
1

Does Rails have the ability to translate a code to a literal?

I have a data table with 3 columns in it:
Id MenuItemName MenuItemType

1 Toast 2
2 Turkey 3
3 Corn Flakes 2

I have a support data table with values of:
Id MenuItemTypeDescription

1 Lunch
2 Breakfast
3 Dinner

I have set the database up with foreign keys to tie the tables together
and have added the “belongs_to” and “has_many” to the model classes.

I was hoping that rails would translate he MenuItemType to the
description for the display list and when doing and add or edit it would
have a dropdown box that would list all the MenuItemType Descriptions.
This may be just a dream.

I have searched the Rails “Agile Development” book and the Rails forums,
but I haven’t found anything on this topic.

Is this supported by the Rails framework or do you have to code this
functionality by hand?

2

Rodney Baker wrote:

I was hoping that rails would translate he MenuItemType to the
description for the display list and when doing and add or edit it would
have a dropdown box that would list all the MenuItemType Descriptions.
This may be just a dream.

Is this supported by the Rails framework or do you have to code this
functionality by hand?

Yes, you have to add this functionality to the form yourself. Check
this out…I think this is what you’re trying to do => collection_select

http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/HowtoUseFormOptionHelpers

3

However, I’ll have to warn you as I’m no expert on this topic either.
I’m having my own problems with the collection_select. I can’t seem to
get it to recover from validation errors. You can look at my detailed
example though and see what I’m doing. I can add and edit all day but
it bombs on me when I have a validation error. Good luck!

http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/92296

4

Thanks for the response.