Rails - Mar 2012 - How to update a model object “the Rails way?”

I have two models: User and Profile.

User has_one Profile, and Profile belongs_to User.

How to update a Profile?

I have done it this way:

def update
  @user = User.find(session[:member_id])
  @profile = @user.profile
  updated = @profile.update_attributes(params[:profile])

  if updated
    flash[:success] = "Your profile was updated."
    redirect_to show_profile_path
  else
    render :edit
  end
end

Is this "the Rails way" to update the model object?

It seems very verbose to me, so I tried this:

def update
  @user = User.find(session[:member_id])
  @profile = @user.build_profile(params[:profile])

  if @profile.save
    flash[:success] = "Your profile was updated."
    redirect_to show_profile_path
  else
    render :edit
  end
end

This works well when the form is valid, but when it is not, there are 
problems, as "build_profile" deletes the associated object before
saving it
again (Profile in this case), so it will be nil. I understand that this is 
not the correct way.

In my User model I have defined the association like this:

has_one :profile, dependent: :destroy

If I remove the dependent option, then when trying to update using the 
latest code will throw this:

"Failed to remove the existing associated profile. The record failed to 
save when after its foreign key was set to nil."

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