Need help with nested forms and habtm

Rails
1

Hi,

I’m currently stuck with a problem I just can’t find a clever solution
for. I checked every tutorial, issuetracker, API reference I could
find but found nothing to “enlighten” me --> I desperately need your
help :-).

My Question is: is it possible to use nested forms for habtm
associations?

–> Here some more info about what I wanted to do and what failed

Basic info

I’ve got following model associations:
Customer
has_many :inquiries
attr_accessible :inquiry_ids
accepts_nested_attributes_for :inquiries

Inquiry
belongs_to :customer
has_and_belongs_to_many :machines
accepts_nested_attributes_for :machines
attr_accessible :machine_ids

Machine
has_and_belongs_to_many :inquiries

I’m on Rails 2.3.5 and formtastic 0.9.7

What I want

I wanted to build a nested form (using formtastic + haml), so a User
could enter his data and create an inquiry regarding several machines
(he put into a cart in advance)

so I set up this:

  • semantic_form_for @customer do |form|

    • form.inputs do
      = form.input :companyname
      = form.input :salutation, :as => :radio, :label => “Gender”,
      :collection => [[“Mister”, “m”], [“Mrs.”, “f”]]
      = form.input :first_name
      = form.input :last_name
      = form.input :street
      = form.input :zip
      = form.input :city
      = form.input :phone
      = form.input :mobile
      = form.input :fax
      = form.input :email

    • form.inputs :for => [:inquiries, @inquiries] do |inquiry_form|
      = inquiry_form.input :text, :hint => t(“inquiryinfo”)

      • inquiry_form.inputs :for => [:machines, @machines] do
        |machine_form|
        = machine_form.input :id, :as => :hidden
        = form.commit_button :label => t(“send”)

PROBLEM

  • the form renders fine for the customer and inquiry fields --> OK!
  • the form renders the hidden field only for the FIRST machine in my
    @machines collection (and there is definitly more then 1 machine in
    the collection, I already checked this with array size and by
    outputting the machines in a for each loop)

QUESTION

  • Did I miss some configuration?
  • are nested forms not usable for habtm associations???
    –> if so, how could I handle my “use case” in the controller?

I’d be sooo happy I any of you could help me out with this…I’m
really lost :frowning:
P.S. Sorry for my English, it’s not my native tongue :slight_smile: