Problem with selection lists

Hi there, I’m using what I call static tables. Not sure if that is the
right term but static tables hold a fixed size of values. For example a
country table would hold all countries. In my person table I have a
link to the country table. Whenever I create a new person I have a drop
down list where the country can selected. That works fine. But when my
Person.create function is called all I have is the country’s name and
not the id. So my question is how can I get the id from the selection
list.

Here is the way my person controller class. I stripped it down to the
essentials.

class PersonController < ApplicationController
scaffold :person

def list
@people = Person.find( :all )
end

def new
@person = Person.new
@name = Name.new
@country = Country.new
@countries = Country.find( :all ).map { |g| [g.name] }
end

def create
@person = Person.new(params[:person])
@name = Name.new(params[:name])
@country = Country.new(params[:country])

Person.transaction do
  @person.name = @name
  @person.country = @country
  @name.save!
  @person.save!
  redirect_to :action => 'list'
end

rescue ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid => e
@name.valid?
@country.valid?
render_action ‘new’
end
end

Here also my new.rhtml

New Person

New Person

<% form_for :person, :url => { :action => :create } do |form| %>
  <%= error_messages_for :person %>
  <%= error_messages_for :name %>
  <%= error_messages_for :country %>

  <% fields_for :name do |n| %>
     First:   <%= n.text_field :first    %>
     Middle: <%= n.text_field :middle %>
     Last:    <%= n.text_field :last    %>
  <% end %>

  <p>
    <% fields_for :country do |c| %>
      Country: <%= c.select( :name, @countries )  %>
    <% end %>
  </p>

  <%= submit_tag 'Create' %>
<% end %>

Back

I hope you can follow my chain of thoughts. Please ask if you’re not.

Thanks ahead,
Christian

Hi,

Try using collection_select.

Get your countries like this instead of mapping just the name to a new
collection:
@countries = Country.find(:all)

Then this in your view (assuming your foreign key is country_id):
<%= c.collection_select(:country_id, @countries, “id”, “name”) %>

Jason

On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 16:02:51 -0000