post method or request flattening array of hashes in params

Hi -- I have the following code in a cucumber feature: http://pastie.org/752061 The problem is that the post method (or the controller) is flattening the array of hashes into an array containing all the key-value pairs in one hash, like so: http://pastie.org/752067 (Obtained from a call to inspect on params[:upload_data] in the controller.)

I also call the post action from a controller spec with this code, which is basically identical: http://pastie.org/752070 This treats the params correctly, and the inspection from this is: http://pastie.org/752079

This is very weird! I'm using the latest stable version of Rails, and Ruby 1.9.1 Can anyone shed any light on what may be going wrong, here? Thanks,    Doug.