Passing foreign key when creating new child record

rubyonrails-talk
#1

What would be considered the "standard" way of setting the foreign key
on a child record when starting from a view of the parent record? E.g.
you're on a view to a person record and use a link_to load a form that
will enable you to add an address for that person (addresses are
stored in a separate table):

<%= link_to 'New address', { :controller => 'addresses', :action =>
'new' } %>

The create action in the addresses controller needs to set the
person_id.

Thanks for your input.

#2

One way is to add person_id to the link to the address construction form:

<%= link_to 'New address', { :controller => 'addresses', :action
=>'new', :person_id => person } %>

Then pass the person_id to the address construction view and store it in
a hidden field

then in the create method:
@person = Person.find(params[:person_id])
@person.create_address(params[:address])

Chris Bartlett wrote:

#3

Thanks for the pointer. I'd looked around and couldn't find a clear
example. Here's the relevant code in the various files I used to get
this working.

views/people/show.rhtml

<%= link_to 'New address', { :controller => 'addresses', :action =>
'new', :person_id => @person } %>

views/addresses/new.rhtml

<% form_for :address, :url => { :action => :create } do |form| %>

  <%= form.hidden_field :person_id, :value => params[:person_id] %>

  [... other form fields, save button, etc.]
<% end %>

models/person.rb

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :addresses
end

models/address.rb

class Address < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :person
  # So the addresses table needs a 'person_id' column, which is the
foreign key
end

controllers/addresses_controller.rb
def new
  @address = Address.new
end
def create
  @address = Address.new(params[:address])
  [...]
end