Complex fields_for mapping to multi-level model association

Rails
1

I’ve come across what might be a limitation of rails, or I’ve missed
something completely

Here’s the situation:

I have 3 models as follows

class Loan < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :guarantors, :class_name => “Guarantor”, :dependent
=> :destroy

def new_guarantor_attributes=(guarantor_attributes)
  guarantors.build(guarantor_attributes)
end

def existing_guarantor_attributes=(guarantor_attributes)
  ...
end

end

class Guarantor < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :loan, :class_name => “Loan”, :foreign_key =>
“loan_id”
has_one :personal_detail, :dependent => :destroy

def personal_detail_attributes=(attributes)
  build_personal_detail(attributes)
end

end

class PersonalDetail < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :guarantor, :class_name => “Guarantor”, :foreign_key =>
“guarantor_id”

firstname:string

middlename:string

surname:string

end

All the associations work fine, but populating them does not, in my
form I have a repeating element generated using javascript, similar to
the tasks example found in #75 Complex Forms Part 3 - RailsCasts

The partial I am repeating looks something like this
<% fields_for(“loan[new_guarantor_attributes][]
[personal_detail_attributes]”, object, &block) -%>

<%= f.text_field :firstname %> <%= f.text_field :middlename %> <%= f.text_field :surname %> 
<%= link_to_function "Remove", ... %>
<% end -%>

It works fine if I’m only saving attributes of the guarantor, but its
fails because no matter which configuration I put the first parameter
of fields_for, it either passes an incomplete array, a jumbled array
or in the example above, it passes and empty array which looks like
this:
[{“personal_detail_attributes”=>[]},
{“personal_detail_attributes”=>[]},
{“personal_detail_attributes”=>[]}]
As you can see it does not include any of the text_fields

I would have thought that would pass an array of guarantors each with
a single personal_detail, something like this:
[{“new_guarantor_attributes” =>
[{“personal_detail_attributes”=>[{“firstname”=>“Bill”,
“middlename”=>“”, “surname”=>“Bloggs”}]}]},
{“new_guarantor_attributes” =>
[{“personal_detail_attributes”=>[{“firstname”=>“John”,
“middlename”=>“”, “surname”=>“Smith”}]}]}]

Here’s the results if I use this config “loan[new_guarantor_attributes]
[personal_detail_attributes][]”
Inputs:
1: firstname: Bill, :lastname: Bloggs
2: firstname: John, :lastname: Smith
{“personal_detail_attributes”=>[{“firstname”=>“Bill”},
{“middlename”=>“”, “firstname”=>“John”}, {“middlename”=>“”,
“surname”=>“Bloggs”}, {“surname”=>“Smith”}]}

As you can see the results are jumpled.

Anyway, to the point, here’s how I need it to work:

Iterate through each guarantor in guarantor_attributes and build it,
and at the same time build each personal_detail (one per guarantor)

Any ideas?