company = params[:person].delete(:company) nil object error on nil.delete

rubyonrails-talk
1

I am using the Rails 2.0 pre-release and trying to replicate the method used by Jamis to create a company, person, and then display the nested xml using .to_xml as shown here: Buckblog: Web services, Rails-style. However, I get the following error:

<pre>   <code> You have a nil object when you didn't expect it! You might have expected an instance of Array. The error occurred while evaluating nil.delete   </code> </pre>

I can see that all my parameters are passing in correctly from the form:

<pre>   <code> {"company"=>{"name"=>"company"}, "commit"=>"Create", "title"=>"wacky", "authenticity_token"=>"7f3e6aaaba34fd8146ce244c2038797ebb1f1593", "first_name"=>"Ryan", "last_name"=>"Riley"}   </code> </pre>

I was pretty certain this came in as an array, so I'm not sure why I'm getting an error saying it is not. Here's the relevant controller and view code:

PeopleController.rb <pre>   <code>   # POST /contacts/people   # POST /contacts/people.xml   def create     company = params[:person].delete(:company)     @company = Company.find_or_create_by_name(company[:name])     @person = @company.people.build(params[:person])

    respond_to do |format|       if @person.save         flash[:notice] = 'Person was successfully created.'         format.html { redirect_to(contacts_person_path(@person)) }         format.xml { render :xml => @person.to_xml( :include => @company ), :status => :created, :location => @person }       else         format.html { render :action => "new" }         format.xml { render :xml => @person.errors, :status => :unprocessable_entity }       end     end   end   </code> </pre>

new.html.erb <pre>   <code> <h1>New person</h1>

<%= error_messages_for :person %>

<% form_tag([:contacts, @person]) do %>   <p>     <b>First name</b><br />     <%= text_field_tag :first_name %>   </p>

  <p>     <b>Last name</b><br />     <%= text_field_tag :last_name %>   </p>

  <p>     <b>Title</b><br />     <%= text_field_tag :title %>   </p>

  <p>     <b>Company</b><br />     <%= text_field_tag "company[name]" %>   </p>

  <p>     <%= submit_tag "Create" %>   </p> <% end %>

<%= link_to 'Back', contacts_people_path %>   </code> </pre>

2

It doesn't look like your person params are in params[:person] at all (you're just using text_field_tag :first_name, and so on, which has no idea that first_name is part of person), so params[:person] is null

Fred

3

Thanks, Fred. I was using form_for, switched to form_tag, and then switched back to form_for. Looking more closely at what was sent, the :company parameter is not part of the :person parameter anyway, so I just had to change the first line in my controller to:

<pre>   <code>   def create     company = params[:company]     @company = Company.find_or_create_by_name(company[:name])     @person = @company.people.build(params[:person])     ...   end   </code> </pre>

Works like a champ, now. Thanks!