Retain form data on redirection

rubyonrails-talk
1

Guyz,

How to retain form data while redirecting back to same page? i do not want to work with sessions option. Any other way ..? I mean i am creating a record and after hitting submit button one of my validation failed and the form redirects to the same page where i have to fill the form values again. But this time every text field value are gone..

Googled but no light.. :slight_smile:

2

Hemant Bhargava wrote:

Guyz,

How to retain form data while redirecting back to same page? i do not want to work with sessions option. Any other way ..? I mean i am creating a record and after hitting submit button one of my validation failed and the form redirects to the same page where i have to fill the form values again. But this time every text field value are gone..

Controllers typically do not redirect upon validation failures. If you simply render the page again your form data will be available and the Rails framework will kindly repopulate the form fields for you automatically.

If you want to know what that code looks like just run a scaffold generator in new Rails project. Follow that pattern in your own controllers and you'll save yourself a lot of headaches.

That being said... a redirect is going to lose the context of the previous request. HTTP is a stateless protocol. This is the reason cookies and sessions exist, and a primary reason why frameworks, such as Rails, are needed.

3

Robert Walker wrote:

Hemant Bhargava wrote:

Guyz,

Controllers typically do not redirect upon validation failures. If you simply render the page again your form data will be available and the Rails framework will kindly repopulate the form fields for you automatically.

If you want to know what that code looks like just run a scaffold generator in new Rails project. Follow that pattern in your own controllers and you'll save yourself a lot of headaches.

That being said... a redirect is going to lose the context of the previous request. HTTP is a stateless protocol. This is the reason cookies and sessions exist, and a primary reason why frameworks, such as Rails, are needed.

Thanks dude.. Thanks for such a good information to me.. :slight_smile: I made it worked as well.

4

I have a view that is a form in add.html.erb and in the create method in the controller I have validation check if everything in the form is set. If validation finds an error, I do

render :action => :add

and all the set values are lost.

if I just do "render" or nothing, it defaults to the create view. Obviously redirect to add didn't work either.

More suggestions?

5

You may have to supply some code, as render :action => :add should work. Do the variables have the same names? Are there any variables set in the "add" action that aren't getting set in the "create" action? Rendering an action does not run its controller code, only renders its view template.

6

I set a cookie but otherwise don't really have any variables that cross. I also have other forms that are even simpler (not even the cookie) and they blank out as well. I also checked my views, no variables are the same. Thanks for your help.

class Qcsubmissions::SetupDatabasesController < ApplicationController   layout 'qcsubmissions'

  def create     if params[:setup_database]['page'] == "index"       #Set variables and set cookies       sCode = params[:setup_database]['DatabaseCode']       cookies[:code] = sCode       #determine if code is queriable or not       db = SetupDatabase.new(sCode, current_user.name)       bExist = db.newDatabase()       if bExist then         redirect_to :action => :query       else         redirect_to :action => :add       end     #Add new, Product and Action Tables     elsif params[:setup_database]['page'] == "add"       #Set variables and set cookies       sCode = params[:setup_database]['DatabaseCode']       cookies[:code] = sCode       #determine if code is queriable or not       db = SetupDatabase.new(sCode, current_user.name)       bExist = db.newDatabase()       if bExist == false         if validateProductTable(params[:setup_database], params[:dbType], params[:interface])               db.addProduct(params[:setup_database]['DatabaseName'], params[:dbType], params[:interface])               redirect_to :action => :query               db.emailSD(current_user.id)             else               render :action => :add             end           else             render :action => :add           end         else           render :action => :add         end       else         flash[:error] = "<div>Submission Not Accepted: Database already exists.</div>"         redirect_to :action => :query       end     end   end

  def query     #variables to pass to the view     @code = cookies[:code]     @db = "development"   end

  def add     #variables to pass to the view     @code = cookies[:code]   end

  def index   end

  def show     redirect_to :action => :index   end

  #Validate Insert into Product Table   def validateProductTable(formParams, formType, interface)     bOK = true     fmessage = Array.new     if formParams['DatabaseName'].blank?       bOK = false       fmessage << "<div>Database Name is required.</div>"     end     if formParams['DatabaseCode'].blank?       bOK = false       fmessage << "<div>Database Name is required.</div>"     end     if formType.blank?       bOK = false       fmessage << "<div>Database Type must be selected.</div>"     end     if interface.blank?       bOK = false       fmessage << "<div>Interface must be selected.</div>"     end     if fmessage.length > 0       flash[:error] = fmessage     end     return bOK   end end