trouble testing callbacks on update to model with nested attributes

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hi,

I have a parent model like this:

class Parent < ActiveRecord::Base   belongs_to :grand_parent   has_many :blond_children, :dependent => :destroy   has_many :brunette_children, :dependent => :destroy   has_many :dogs, :dependent => :destroy

accepts_nested_attributes_for :blond_children, :brunette_children, :dogs,                                 :allow_destroy => true ... end

I can't seem to get the attributes of the children to change with attempts like the following

parent_instance.blond_children_attributes = {"1"=>{:_destroy=>true}, "2"=>{:_destroy=>true}} parent_instance.save parent_instance.reload.blond_children.should == <some new number reflecting deletion>

I've also tried this with hashes and using #update_attributes on the parent_instance.

I keep experimenting, but I can't get expected results. I'm wondering if maybe the problems are:

1) on an update, all children and their attributes need to be explicitly mentioned, even if the value is "" 2) where should the parent and child ids appear in any attempts to update child attributes?

I might guess some readers have banged their head on something like this in the past, any pointers?

Thanks,

Lille

2

I solved my problem by departing from the guidance at

Instead of...

parent_instance.reload.blond_children # this resulted in blond_children == nil

...I used...

refreshed_parent_instance = Parent.find(:last) refreshed_parent_instance.blond_children.blah_blah_blah...

It seems, then that the problem I encountered concerns some departure my association structure takes from the standard model presumed in the api, where a reload should be equivalent to a find.

Lille