Controller params: The dreaded "TypeError: no implicit conversion of Symbol into Integer"

rubyonrails-talk
1

I’ve ended up with a nested accepts_nested_attributes_for with three models, which is probably not a good idea but not much can be done about it right now:

fairsharing_record → organisation_link → organisation

The controller creates records as follows:

 def create
    @fairsharing_record = FairsharingRecord.new(current_user: current_user)
    puts permitted_attributes(@fairsharing_record) # The output of this is below.
    @fairsharing_record.update(permitted_attributes(@fairsharing_record).except(:logo)) # fails here
    # Various other things happen before the record is saved...

My permitted attributes contain this:

...
{organisation_links_attributes: [:relation, :is_lead, :organisation_attributes => 
[:name, :homepage, :organisation_type_ids => [], :alternative_names => [], 
:country_ids => []]]},
...

…and there’s a test to check that an organisation and its link are created:

test 'can create organisations via fairsharing_record' do
    params = {
      fairsharing_record: {
        record_type_id: record_types(:repository).id,
        organisation_links_attributes: {
          relation: 'maintains',
          is_lead: true,
          organisation_attributes: {
            organisation_type_ids: [organisation_types(:university).id],
            name: 'Example University',
            homepage: 'https://example.edu',
            alternative_names: ['alternate example university'],
            country_ids: [countries(:duncruigh).id],
          }
        }
      }
    }
    post '/fairsharing_records', params: params.to_json, headers: auth_headers(users(:one)) # fails here
    assert_response :success
    body = JSON.parse(response.body)['data']
    assert_not_empty body
    record = FairsharingRecord.find(body['id'].to_i)
    assert_not_empty record.organisation_links 
    puts record.organisation_links.inspect
  end

As far as I can tell all the correct parameters appear; the puts statement above shows this:

{"record_type_id"=>486430670, "organisation_links_attributes"=>#<ActionController::Parameters {"relation"=>"maintains", "is_lead"=>true, "organisation_attributes"=>#<ActionController::Parameters {"name"=>"Random University", "homepage"=>"https://rando.edu", "organisation_type_ids"=>[544900590], "alternative_names"=>["stochastic university"], "country_ids"=>[671028764]} permitted: true>} permitted: true>, "metadata"=>#<ActionController::Parameters {"name"=>"Nested Organisation Record", "abbreviation"=>"NOR", "status"=>"ready", "homepage"=>"https://example.edu", "doi"=>"XXYY1122", "tombstone"=>false, "contacts"=>[#<ActionController::Parameters {"contact_name"=>"John Smith", "contact_orcid"=>"0000-1111-2222-333X", "contact_email"=>"jsmith@example.com"} permitted: true>], "description"=>"Testing nested organisations."} permitted: true>}

As far as I can tell that looks correct, yet a TypeError: no implicit conversion of Symbol into Integer is a result. It’s clearly related to the organisation_links_attributes (the error disappears if I remove the non-array parameters from the allowed_fields) but I can’t work out what. Could anyone suggest how this might be fixed?

2

My guess is that you need something like .to_i on your

        organisation_type_ids: [organisation_types(:university).id],
        country_ids: [countries(:duncruigh).id],

as they look like arrays and not integers …

"organisation_type_ids"=>[544900590],
"country_ids"=>[671028764]}

cheers

3

Thanks for replying. I think in this case that they should be arrays; there could be more than one organisation_type or country applied, so I’d need to pass several. Similar tests have worked elsewhere, the main difference here is the nested parameter situation. I’m guessing it’s the way name, homepage, relation and is_lead are represented in the permitted_attributes, but I’ve no idea how else I might represent them.