Is it absolutely necessary that you use these field names as you have 
listed them? That is, is this a legacy table or a completely new 
application? If it is completely new, then you should change the foreign 
key field in your parts table so as to follow the rails conventions:
Table: parts
id            int(11)
pnum          char(8)
desc          varchar(60)
rev           char(3)
part_type_id  int(11)   <<<< convention to link to part_type model
created_on    timestamp(14)
updated_on    timestamp(14)
Then, you need to put the following into your Part.rb model:
belongs_to :part_type
and in your PartType.rb model:
has_many :parts
Once all that is in place, then in your app/views/parts/_edit.rhtml view 
you could put the following:
<%=
select(''part'',''part_type_id'',PartType.find(:all).map
{|pt|
[pt.ptype, pt.id]}) %>
This will produce the select list that you want. The select() helper 
wants as its third parameter an array of options of the form 
[["option","value"],["option","value"],etc.].
The line of code above
finds and steps through all the PartTypes in the database and returns 
just such an array of their ptypes and ids.
If you absolutely have to use the field you listed as the foreign key, 
then in your models you would add the following to the has_many and 
belongs_to declarations...
,:foreign_key => ptype
HOWEVER, I think you''re just asking for trouble, since ptype on one 
table is an INT(11) and on the other table it''s a VARCHAR(20).
You''re
much better off going with the convention of part_type_id for the 
foreign key field.
c.
Richard wrote:> Hi All,
> 
> Please be patient I am still going through the RoR learning curve.
> 
> What I have:
> 
> Table: parts
> id            int(11)
> pnum          char(8)
> desc          varchar(60)
> rev           char(3)
> ptype         int(11)
> created_on    timestamp(14)
> updated_on    timestamp(14)
> 
> Table: part_types
> id            int(11)
> ptype         varchar(20)
> desc          varchar(60)
> created_on    timestamp(14)
> updated_on    timestamp(14)
> 
> What I need to do:
> 
> I have created the scaffold for the parts table.  In the form for adding 
> a part I would like to have a select box that contains part_types.id, 
> part_types.ptype and populate the parts.ptype with the selected 
> part_type.id
> 
> Questions:
> 
> 1.  How is the data from the part_types table selected and populated 
> into the parts form?
> 
> 2.  Is this a form, helper or controller method?
> 
> 3.  Are there any specific database requierments, i.e. Foriegn Keys?
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Richard
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