Need some help understanding forms

Rails
1

im confused. all i want is data from a form to be accessible in my
controller after the user presses a buton…

in my layout view :

<%= start_form_tag(:action=>‘search’)%>
<%= text_field(‘something1’, ‘something2’, :size => 25)%>
<%= submit_tag “Search”%>

now in my controller how do i access the field in the text box?

from my reading, the first parameter is the object, second is the
method, third are the options. how do i make it so i dont need a method,
i just want the string in the text box?

2

ok so <%= text_field(‘search1’, ‘’, :size => 25)%>

ok, so search1 is the name of the symbol that i use in params[:search1],
and the second parameter is just what i want for a default value for
search1 right?

please let me know if this is correct.

thanks.

3

Koloa,

the text_field helper, takes a syntax such as :

text_field(“post”, “title”, “size” => 20), which will build for you
the following html.

Which when received by your controller will give you a params hash as:

params[:post][:title]

sending the above prams to a Post model,
p = Post.new(params[:post]) will initialize the title method of p(a
Post instantiation) with the value typed in the html form.

You should read about helpers here: http://api.rubyonrails.com/
classes/ActionView/Helpers/FormHelper.html#M000389
and this explanation of params should be useful: http://
wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/UnderstandingRequestParameters

enjoy the ride koloa!

Jodi

4

hello thank you for the explanation, i will do the reading!