How to populate nested field from controller in rails

Question

I am working on a basic blog system, where in my #post/show I have a form which submits to both Visitor and Comment models. Post/show has this form at the bottom of the page:

<%= form_for :visitor, url: comment_visitors_path do |f| %>
  <p>
    <%= f.label :fullname %><br>
    <%= f.text_field :fullname %>
  </p>

  <%= f.fields_for :comments do |c| %>
    <p>
        <%= c.label :message %><br>
        <%= c.text_area :message %>
    </p>
    ...
  <% end %>
<% end %>

For some long reason, I want to be able to pre-populate both visitor fields and comments fields. In the #post/show controller I can pre-populate the visitor's fullname like so:

def show
 @post = Post.find(params[:id])

 @visitor = Visitor.new(fullname: 'John', comments: [Comment.new(message: 'not working')])
 ...
end

But can't figure out how to pre-populate the values of fields_for, namely (comments: ...) does anyone have any ideas?

The above code does not fill in the textarea with the provided default value, would be nice if it did.

David Hemmat · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-21 21:20:52Z

1

Substitute

<%= form_for :visitor, url: comment_visitors_path do |f| %>

with <%= form_for @visitor, url: comment_visitors_path do |f| %>

This did the trick for me.

Also, did you make sure to use

accepts_nested_attributes_for :comments

in your Visitor model? If you don't, fields_for will not prepopulate the comments (or work correctly).

edited Oct 21, 2015 at 21:20

answered Oct 21, 2015 at 20:36

David Hemmat

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2 Comments

Kingsley Ijomah Over a year ago

Oh yes, I do have accepts_nested_attributes_for :comments in Visitor model

David Hemmat Over a year ago

I have edited the answer, I realized that using the :visitor symbol wasn't working locally.

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