Setting a default option for a select list of a new object

rubyonrails-talk
1

Yet another Rails newby getting his feet wet...

I have a lookup table for states in a database that I use to create a select list for objects with addresses.

When creating a new object (a business, in this case), I want the "State" select field to automatically have, say, Idaho selected. How do I do that? Here's my code so far:

# Business Controller # def new   @business = Business.new   @states = State.find(:all) # so the _form partial can create the select list end

# Business Model # belongs_to :state #set up the relationship between Businesses and States

# _form partial # <%= select_tag('state_id', options_for_select(@states.collect {|s| [s.name, s.id]}, @business.state_id)) %>

The @business.state_id will select the state for a business that already exists when this _form partial is used in the edit view. I want to have a default state selected (Idaho) for NEW businesses that isn't the first one in the list (Alabama).

2

Hi,

an obvious answer to this would be to have one variable collecting the State object for Idaho, and one collecting all states. To make it more dynamic, maybe it's better to leave the state as a session variable, or a global variable, or something stored in an object expressing local preferences ...

@local = State.find_by_name("Idaho") @states = State.find(:all)

then, in the form <%= options = [[@local.name],[@local.id]] + @states.collect{|s| [s.name,s.id]} select("state","id",options) %> (you could maybe add a separator between the local state and the full list of state [["--------",""]] or similar)

Elise

3

I'm wondering if there's a way to use the initialize method of the BusinessModel to achieve the desired result...