Passing Form Values into a controller in Rails

Question

say I have a text field like the following in a view called 'search':

 <%= text_field_tag(:lookup) %>

how do I submit this ':lookup' value and pass it into the controller called 'search' and assign it to a variable?

It's a basic problem, but being a noob, it's difficult ;)

Timothy Chen · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-18 05:45:42Z

25

That will be accessible in the controller as

params[:lookup]

Your controller could look something like this:

class SearchesController < ActionController::Base

  def search
    lookup = params[:lookup]
    @models = Model.find_by_lookup(lookup)
  end
end

And your view should look like this:

<%= form_tag searches_path do %>
  <label for="lookup">Lookup</label>
  <%= text_field_tag :lookup %>
 <%= submit_tag "Submit" %>
<% end %>

Timothy Chen

3742 silver badges16 bronze badges

answered Aug 20, 2009 at 20:27

erik

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4 Comments

I forgot to mention in the question, but how do I submit the form?

arrg I must be stupid today. Am I supposed to create a controller file called searches_controller.rb?

Yes. If you're just getting started using scaffolding as an example might help. fairleads.blogspot.com/2007/12/…

Don't forget the equals sign before form_tag so that the form actually shows up! <%= form_tag searches_path do %>