Rails Framework Documentation - More Info, Please

Bryan Cox
Wed, 20 Dec 2006 07:29:46 -0000

Hey all,

I try to ask intelligent question about Ruby on Rails, and only after I
search for the answers myself.  Recently, I''ve hit a frustrating bump
on
the learning curve and it seems really stupid.

I''m making a user system, and working on the update method.  When I
create the form in the same manner as taught in Agile Development with
Rails and a number of other tutorials (assign an object in the
controler, and then use FormHelper methods to create the form in the
view) I run into issues with the password field.  I hash all the
passwords, and they''re inputted by default into the passsword field.  I
want this field to be blank, like the password_confirmation field is,
but I don''t know how.

So I looked at the rails documentation, and the password helper works
just like the text_field helper... okay, so I look at the documentation
for THAT, and here is where the problem is, and I''ve seen this a number
of times before.

When I look at the documentation (reference:
http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/FormHelper.html#M000389),
I look at text_field at the very bottom.  It lists as parameters three
things.  I figure that the solution to my problem is by passing an
option in the options hash.  But I don''t know the syntax and
don''t want
to guess at it.  Tell me how, generally, to find a list of available
options for a function -- I can''t seem to figure it out.  This would
help me a number of different times, because I run into this issue quite
often.