Rails - Apr 2006 - text_field_with_auto_complete - NoMethodError in the model

Hey guys,

I have a text_field_with_auto_complete that looks like this:

<%= text_field_with_auto_complete ("service_request",
"req_name",
{"size"=>40}) %>

which goes to this in the controller:

def auto_complete_for_service_request_req_name
    auto_complete_responder_for_investigators
params[:service_request][:req_name]
end

auto_complete_responder_for_investigators renders the partial after
doing a query.

When I load the page, I get this:

NoMethodError in   Service_request#new

Showing app/views/service_request/new.rhtml where line #12 raised:  
undefined method `req_name'' for #<ServiceRequest:0x7802a50>

that''s because req_name is not a field in the table. So in my
ServiceRequest.rb model, I have this:

validates_presence_of :req_name

Still not working... am I missing something here? Any help is appreciated!

Thanks,
Jin