Rails - Jan 2006 - Accessing associations in a form helper

I''ve got two models, a Company and a User, and a Company belongs_to a
User.  When I create/edit a company object, I''d like to be able to
modify the associated user.  Can I do this directly with form helpers?
 Something like
text_field("company.user", "login")

Right now I''m having a user object and a company object, and then
associating them with @company.user = @user in my controller.  Just
wondering if I can use the association directly, or if there''s some
preferred way to do this.

Pat

On 1/16/06, Pat Maddox <pergesu@gmail.com> wrote:
> I''ve got two models, a Company and a User, and a Company
belongs_to a
> User.  When I create/edit a company object, I''d like to be able to
> modify the associated user.  Can I do this directly with form helpers?
>  Something like
> text_field("company.user", "login")
>
> Right now I''m having a user object and a company object, and then
> associating them with @company.user = @user in my controller.  Just
> wondering if I can use the association directly, or if there''s
some
> preferred way to do this.
>
Because the helpers rely on specifically-named instance variables, you
end up having to do this:
<% @user = @company.user -%>
<%= text_field ''user'', ''login'' %>

Unfortunate, but there''s no way to ask an object what name it was
bound to in the calling context, so Rails has to ''cheat''.