Ruby on Rails - nested attributes: How do I access the parent model from child model

Question

I have a couple of models like so

class Bill < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :bill_items
  belongs_to :store

  accepts_nested_attributes_for :bill_items
end

class BillItem <ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :product
  belongs_to :bill

  validate :has_enough_stock

  def has_enough_stock
    stock_available = Inventory.product_is(self.product).store_is(self.bill.store).one.quantity
    errors.add(:quantity, "only #{stock_available} is available") if stock_available < self.quantity
  end
end

The above validation so obviously doesn't work because when I'm reading the bill_items from nested attributes inside the bill form, the attributes bill_item.bill_id or bill_item.bill are not available before being saved.

So how do I go about doing something like that?

I solved this by adding a call back to the association, :before_add => :set_nest — TMaYaD
– TMaYaD, Commented Feb 19, 2011 at 6:35

TMaYaD · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-19 06:39:28Z

18

This is how I solved it eventually; by setting parent on callback

  has_many :bill_items, :before_add => :set_nest

private
  def set_nest(bill_item)
    bill_item.bill ||= self
  end

answered Feb 19, 2011 at 6:39

TMaYaD

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1 Comment

ilpoldo Over a year ago

Yeah! It has been bugging me lately. I wish it was automatic, one could write a more generic version if callback functions were run against the association proxy (like association extensions) instead of the association owner.

yenshirak · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-22 21:47:36Z

9

In Rails 4 (didn't test on earlier versions) you can access the parent model by setting the inverse_of option on has_many or has_one:

class Bill < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :bill_items, inverse_of: :bill
  belongs_to :store

  accepts_nested_attributes_for :bill_items
end

Documentation: Bi-directional associations

answered Apr 22, 2015 at 21:47

yenshirak

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1 Comment

Abs Over a year ago

This is true answer for rails 4

dombesz · Accepted Answer · 2010-04-25 15:15:08Z

1

The bill_item.bill should be available , you could try to do a raise self.bill.inspect to see if it's there or not, but i think the problem is elsewhere.

answered Apr 25, 2010 at 15:15

dombesz

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1 Comment

hornairs Over a year ago

Even if it isn't available, the OP could just add a before_validation callback to set it. The BillItems shouldn't need to know their own IDs or the parent Bill's ID to validate.

TMaYaD · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-28 08:54:35Z

I "fixed" it by setting parent in a callback:

class Bill < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :bill_items, :dependent => :destroy, :before_add => :set_nest
  belongs_to :store

  accepts_nested_attributes_for :bill_items

  def set_nest(item)
    item.bill ||= self
  end
end

class BillItem <ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :product
  belongs_to :bill

  validate :has_enough_stock

  def has_enough_stock
        stock_available = Inventory.product_is(self.product).store_is(self.bill.store).one.quantity
    errors.add(:quantity, "only #{stock_available} is available") if stock_available < self.quantity
  end
end

The set_nest method did the trick. Wish it came standard with accepts_nested_attributes_for.

CalebHC · Accepted Answer · 2010-04-10 17:12:12Z

Yeah, this kind of problem can be annoying. You could try adding a virtual attribute to your Bill Item model like this:

class BillItem <ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :product
  belongs_to :bill

  attr_accessible :store_id

  validate :has_enough_stock

  def has_enough_stock
   stock_available = Inventory.product_is(self.product).store_is(load_bill_store).one.quantity
   errors.add(:quantity, "only #{stock_available} is available") if stock_available < self.quantity
  end

  private

  def load_bill_store
    Store.find_by_id(self.store_id)
  end
end

And then in your view you could add a hidden field like this:

<%= bill_item.hidden_field :store_id, :value => store_id %>

This hasn't been test but it might work. You might not find it desirable to have the store_id in the html but it may not be a concern. Let me know if this helps.

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