Passing NULL when it shouldn't

rubyonrails-talk
1

I'm having a problem passing along all parameters to post a comment:

<%= form_tag :action => "comment", :id => @zwemmer, :created_on => Time.now, :created_by => "number1" %>   <%= text_area "comment", "body" ,:size =>"25x10" %><br/>   <%= submit_tag "Merk op!" %> </form>

In the console i get:

  ←[4;36;1mComment Create (16.0ms)←[0m ←[0;1mINSERT INTO "comments" ("created_ on", "updated_at", "body", "zwemmer_id", "created_by", "created_at") VALUES('201 1-04-07 18:06:56', '2011-04-07 18:06:56', 'testcontent', 124, NULL, '2011-04-07 18:06:56')

So to created_by it's passing NULL instead of "number1". How is this possible?

2

Can you post your controller code that the form is submitting to? I’m curious to see how you are processing the values being sent over.

B.

3

In ZwemmersController:

def comment     Zwemmer.find(params[:id]).comments.create(params[:comment])     flash[:notice] = "Added new comment."     redirect_to :action => "show", :id => params[:id] end

4

If you look a little higher in your log, you'll see the parameters that are getting passed in the POST request. Judging from your form, they'll look something like this:

:comment => {:body => "testcontent"}, :created_by => 'number1

The problem is that you probably want the :created_by key to be inside the :comment hash, not as a separate parameter. Otherwise, you'll have to manually set the 'created_by' attribute in your controller code, e.g.:

@comment = Zwemmer.find(params[:id]).comments.build(params[:comment]) @comment.created_by = params[:created_by] @comment.save

To avoid this, you want to make that 'created_by' parameter part of the 'comment' hash. One way to do this would be to pass it as a hidden field inside the form, rather than trying to add it to the form's action URL:

<%= hidden_field :comment, :created_by, 'number1' %>

so that your parameters would look like this:

:comment => {:body => 'testcontent', :created_by => 'number1'}

and your controller code could be simply:

Zwemmer.find(params[:id]).comments.create(params[:comment])

Chris

5

Thanks for the fast reply, i added your code:

<%= form_tag :action => "comment", :id => @zwemmer, :created_on => Time.now %> <%= hidden_field :comment, :created_by, 'number1' %>   <%= text_area "comment", "body" ,:size =>"25x10" %><br/>   <%= submit_tag "Merk op!" %> </form>

Now i am getting a TypeError 'can't convert Symbol into String' from that new line though.

6

Sorry, I always forget which bits of Rails take symbols versus strings. Try changing the parameters to hidden_field from symbols:

:comment, :created_by

to strings:

'comment', 'created_by'

i.e. the same way you have it for your call to text_area on the next line.

Chris

7

No prob i found it via google, should be through :value: <%= hidden_field :comment, :created_by, :value => "number1" %>

Everything working now, thanks much for the help!