# Select multiple models with multiple checkboxes. Rails Way?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/select-multiple-models-with-multiple-checkboxes-rails-way/68315>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [September 11, 2006, 6:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/select-multiple-models-with-multiple-checkboxes-rails-way/68315 "2006-09-11T18:24:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![chris](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/958977/32.png) [@chris](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chris)\
**Post date:** [September 11, 2006, 6:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/select-multiple-models-with-multiple-checkboxes-rails-way/68315/1 "2006-09-11T18:24:27Z")

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I want to display my houses with a checkbox next to each of them, how do  
i do it?  
I know i could do check\_box(“house[]”,“enabled”) if my houses could be  
enabled. But what do you do if you just want a list of the ids of the  
selected houses?

Any ideas? I’m sooo sure this is stupidly easy. I feel stupid.

I’ve had to do this and it doesnt seem right, although it works:

[view]

\<% for @house in @houses %\>  
\<%=check\_box “house[]”,“nil?” %\>  
\<% end

[controller]

#this method will return a list of selected house ids:  
def get\_selected\_houses  
ids=[]  
params[param].each\_pair do |key,value|  
if value[“nil?”]==“1”  
ids \<\< key  
end  
end  
false  
end

Any ideas what the rails way of doing this is?

Thanks  
Chris

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chris](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/958977/32.png) [@chris](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chris)\
**Post date:** [September 11, 2006, 6:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/select-multiple-models-with-multiple-checkboxes-rails-way/68315/2 "2006-09-11T18:58:43Z")

</div>

Hello Chris,

2006/9/11, Chris [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid):

> I want to display my houses with a checkbox next to each of them, how do  
> i do it?

Look into the MultipleSelect plugin:  
[http://www.agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/multiple\_select\_helper](http://www.agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/multiple_select_helper)  
[http://ruido-blanco.net/blog/rails-multiple-select-helper-plugin/](http://ruido-blanco.net/blog/rails-multiple-select-helper-plugin/)

## Hope that helps !

François Beausoleil  
[http://blog.teksol.info/](http://blog.teksol.info/)  
[http://piston.rubyforge.org/](http://piston.rubyforge.org/)