hi, guys,
I have the following db tables: 1) Addresses - represents an address (ie line 1, line 2, suburb,postcode, state and country) 2) Accounts - represents a user account. Will have a foreign key, "address_id" 3) Warehouses - represents a warehouse. Will have a foreign key, "address_id"
Each Account object can have one or zero (none) corresponding Address object. Each Warehouse object can have one or zero (none) corresponding Address object.
I started off reading ActiveRecord::Associations::ClassMethods and Getting Started with Rails — Ruby on Rails Guides on the ".build" helper.
From what I understand in context of the latter url, the model assigned with the "belongs_to" will have a foreign key attribute.
In my case, consider that a new Account is being created (via registration). The user goes to his/her profile and clicks on the "create new Address" to fill in his/her address for the account.
The Addresses controller's 'new' method is called. This is where I am stuck.
If i did something like
def new @address = @account.address.build end
this will cause a new Addresses object to be built with a non-existent attribute, :user_id to be set with the new address' id.
An option I have considered is to set the address id value into the Account object's foreign key, ':address_id' when a new address is being submitted for creation (ie. calling Addresses controller method, 'create'). Here's an example:
def create @address = Address.new(params[:address])
if @address.save @user.id = @address.id @user.save flash[:notice] = "Account registered!" redirect_back_or_default account_url else render :action => :new end end
Is there a better way to set the foreign key of an object when an optionally associated object is being instantiated and saved to the db?
thanks