Rails - Apr 2006 - Refreshing RHTML page with previously posted data?

All,

After a POST, I want to be able to redisplay a view with the data that 
was previously entered when my controller action notices a validation 
failure and calls render on the view that does the submit.

Example:

View x.rhtml - text field is filled in
Call controller action
Controller action fails validation calls render (:action =>
''x'')
x.rthml shows up with blank text field which I would like to be filled 
in.

Why this doesn''t work makes sense to me (more or less) already.

My text_field is not associated with an attribute on a model object. 
The object and field names are arbitrary since I was able to 
successfully pull the data from the param array.

Do I need to associate my form field with a model object in order to 
successfully redisplay data that was submitted on a previous POST?

Is there another way to handle this by using text_field_tag?

I am wondering whether I should build a model just to handle this form 
interaction or whether I should use a text_field_tag instead.

I am starting to see that thinking of model as strictly objects that 
require persistence to a database is limiting :).  Any takers for that 
statement?

Any advice?

Thanks,
Wes

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

you don''t need to create a new model. you can save the value as an  
instance variable and set that value back into the view. something like:

controller:

def new
   @text_value = ""
end

def create
   @text_value = params[:text_value]
end

view (_form.rhtml):

<input type="text name="text_value" value="<%=h
@text_value %>" />


i guess this way you won''t be able to use the text_field_tag...

-tak.

On Apr 17, 2006, at 5:19 PM, Wes Gamble wrote:
> All,
>
> After a POST, I want to be able to redisplay a view with the data that
> was previously entered when my controller action notices a validation
> failure and calls render on the view that does the submit.
>
> Example:
>
> View x.rhtml - text field is filled in
> Call controller action
> Controller action fails validation calls render (:action =>
''x'')
> x.rthml shows up with blank text field which I would like to be filled
> in.
>
> Why this doesn''t work makes sense to me (more or less) already.
>
> My text_field is not associated with an attribute on a model object.
> The object and field names are arbitrary since I was able to
> successfully pull the data from the param array.
>
> Do I need to associate my form field with a model object in order to
> successfully redisplay data that was submitted on a previous POST?
>
> Is there another way to handle this by using text_field_tag?
>
> I am wondering whether I should build a model just to handle this form
> interaction or whether I should use a text_field_tag instead.
>
> I am starting to see that thinking of model as strictly objects that
> require persistence to a database is limiting :).  Any takers for that
> statement?
>
> Any advice?
>
> Thanks,
> Wes
>
> -- 
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

Takashi,

Thanks, that''s very helpful.  This of course makes sense.

In fact, you can use text_field if you want since the first two params 
are object name and attribute and you can still get at those via 
params[''object name''][''attribute''].

You _could_ do something like this

text_field(''object'', ''attr'', { :value =>
#{@text_value} }

as long as you set @text_value somewhere in your controller similar to 
what is below and only address the parameter using 
@params[''object''][''attr''].

However, this is very misleading to someone coming along later because 
they will probably think that you are updating an instance of a model 
named @object, when in fact ''object'' is just a hash name.

So I went ahead with the straight input field until such time as I think 
I should have a full-fledged model object backing my form.

Thanks for the help!

Wes


Takashi Okamoto wrote:
> you don''t need to create a new model. you can save the value as an
> instance variable and set that value back into the view. something like:
> 
> controller:
> 
> def new
>    @text_value = ""
> end
> 
> def create
>    @text_value = params[:text_value]
> end
> 
> view (_form.rhtml):
> 
> <input type="text name="text_value" value="<%=h
@text_value %>" />
> 
> 
> i guess this way you won''t be able to use the text_field_tag...
> 
> -tak.

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