Rails - Jan 2006 - Form field naming semantics question

Hi,

I have a question today regarding how the various form elements in 
_form.rhtml are named.

I understand that for a database table "persons" with a column headed
by
"name", then in _form.rhtml it will probably be like:

<p><label for="person_name">Name><br/>
<%= text_field ''person'', ''name'' 
%></p>

However supposing in my Person class there is a link to another Person 
object (ie: spouse)

Is it possible to name the form fields such that the columns 
encapsulated by the spouse reference will be automatically captured as 
well?

What I''m trying to express is something like..

<p><label for="person.spouse_name">Spouse''s
Name><br/>
<%= text_field ''person.spouse'', ''name'' 
%></p>

What I''m trying to accomplish here is when you pass the whole 
params[:person] to the constructor on the Person class, it will also be 
able to set the value for the spouse Person in the Person object to the 
value contained here.

Unfortunately that''s not the correct way, but can someone please point 
me to the right way?

Thanks!

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Woei Shyang wrote:
> <p><label for="person_name">Name><br/>
> <%= text_field ''person'', ''name'' 
%></p>
> 
> However supposing in my Person class there is a link to another Person 
> object (ie: spouse)
> 
> Is it possible to name the form fields such that the columns 
> encapsulated by the spouse reference will be automatically captured as 
> well?
> 
> What I''m trying to express is something like..
> 
> <p><label for="person.spouse_name">Spouse''s
Name><br/>
> <%= text_field ''person.spouse'',
''name''  %></p>
> 
> What I''m trying to accomplish here is when you pass the whole 
> params[:person] to the constructor on the Person class, it will also be 
> able to set the value for the spouse Person in the Person object to the 
> value contained here.
> 
> Unfortunately that''s not the correct way, but can someone please
point
> me to the right way?
Model-based form helpers don''t currently work with multi-level objects.
However I''ve made, and am currently successfuly using, a patch that
enables this.  With this you can write:

     <%= text_field ''person[spouse]'', :name %>

The patch can be found at http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/2053 .
I''ve also made an unreleased extension of this that does the same
thing for error_messages_on and error_messages_for.

This functionality seems to be requested quite often (there''s another
post today asking about this: http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/51548)
so I''ll turn my research patch into a trunk candidate patch.

An alternative you can use now is:

    <%= text_field_tag ''person[spouse][name]'',
@person.spouse.name %>

-- 
We develop, watch us RoR, in numbers too big to ignore.

Hi,

I''ve tried the current alternative but I got an error..

`@LineItem[Product][name]'' is not allowed as an instance variable name

Is there something else that I should be looking for? I was actually 
toying with the depot application provided with "Agile web development 
with rails" (which I guess should be a popular book here)

Thanks :)

Mark Reginald James wrote:
> Woei Shyang wrote:
> 
>> What I''m trying to express is something like..
>> me to the right way?
> Model-based form helpers don''t currently work with multi-level
objects.
> However I''ve made, and am currently successfuly using, a patch
that
> enables this.  With this you can write:
> 
>      <%= text_field ''person[spouse]'', :name %>
> 
> The patch can be found at http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/2053 .
> I''ve also made an unreleased extension of this that does the same
> thing for error_messages_on and error_messages_for.
> 
> This functionality seems to be requested quite often (there''s
another
> post today asking about this: http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/51548)
> so I''ll turn my research patch into a trunk candidate patch.
> 
> An alternative you can use now is:
> 
>     <%= text_field_tag ''person[spouse][name]'',
@person.spouse.name %>
> 
> --
> We develop, watch us RoR, in numbers too big to ignore.

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Woei Shyang wrote:
> `@LineItem[Product][name]'' is not allowed as an instance variable
name
No, don''t put the ''@'' in the string.  Use either

<%= text_field_tag ''line_item[product][name]'',
@line_item.product.name %>

or

<%= text_field_tag ''line_item[product][name]'',
@line_item.product ? @line_item.product.name : nil %>

-- 
We develop, watch us RoR, in numbers too big to ignore.

On 1/13/06, Mark Reginald James <mrj@bigpond.net.au>
wrote:
> Woei Shyang wrote:
>
> > `@LineItem[Product][name]'' is not allowed as an instance
variable name
>
> No, don''t put the ''@'' in the string.  Use either
>
> <%= text_field_tag ''line_item[product][name]'',
@line_item.product.name %>
>
> or
>
> <%= text_field_tag ''line_item[product][name]'',
@line_item.product ? @line_item.product.name : nil %>
>
The case where I am running into this problem I am trying to use
text_field_with_auto_complete.  As I understand this workaround, it
uses a *_tag helper which is for non-model attributes, but I have
implied from your workaround that it will work with model data in this
case.  However, I can''t get the _with_auto_complete to accept any
variant that includes a multi-level object reference.  Will your
patch, if applied, allow such a thing as

<%= text_field_with_auto_complete :part[:part_name], :part_name%>

?  I would love that.

Thanks!

- Ian

Ian Harding wrote:
> The case where I am running into this problem I am trying to use
> text_field_with_auto_complete.  As I understand this workaround, it
> uses a *_tag helper which is for non-model attributes, but I have
> implied from your workaround that it will work with model data in this
> case.  However, I can''t get the _with_auto_complete to accept any
> variant that includes a multi-level object reference.  Will your
> patch, if applied, allow such a thing as
> 
> <%= text_field_with_auto_complete :part[:part_name], :part_name%>
Yes, looking at the code for text_field_with_auto_complete I *think*
it would work with the patch as it stands.  However for your notation
to work you''d have to mess with the Symbol class:

class Symbol
   def [](index) "#{self}[#{index}]" end
end

With the patch as it stands you would write:

<%= text_field_with_auto_complete ''part[part_name]'',
:part_name %>

Alternatively, the patch could be changed to use Woei Shyang''s
notation:

<%= text_field_with_auto_complete ''part.part_name'',
:part_name %>

Would this be better?  The field id would be
''part.part_name_part_name''
rather than ''part[part_name]_part_name''.  This would eliminate
square
brackets from id tags, which are not allowed by the standard.  But by
the same token, square brackets aren''t allowed in name tags either,
meaning markup being generated by Rails'' form helpers is not legal
HTML!
See http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/types.html#h-6.2 .

-- 
We develop, watch us RoR, in numbers too big to ignore.