Rails: Accept 2D array of strings with strong parameters - ruby-on-rails

Question

We have a Rails controller that gets the following data:
params = ActionController::Parameters.new({
"requests": [{
"params": {
"facets": ["user.id", "user.type"],
"facetFilters": [
["user.type:Individual"]
]
}
}, {
"params": {
"facets": "user.type"
}
}]
})
We want to use strong parameters to accept this data, but I haven't yet seen a pattern that will let us accept the 2D array in facetFilters. I'm tinkering with the following:
params[:requests].each do |request|
request[:permitted] = true
request[:params].each do |o|
if ['facets', 'facetFilters'].include?(o.first)
begin
o[:permitted] = true
rescue
end
end
end
end
As one can see not all attributes are permitted (the permitted attributes don't get passed to children elements), as this returns:
[<ActionController::Parameters {"params"=><ActionController::Parameters {"facets"=>["user.id", "user.type"], "facetFilters"=>[["user.type:Individual"]]} permitted: false>, "permitted"=>true} permitted: false>, <ActionController::Parameters {"params"=><ActionController::Parameters {"facets"=>"user.type"} permitted: false>, "permitted"=>true} permitted: false>]
And there are lots of permitted: false in there...
Is it possible to accomplish this goal? Any pointers would be super helpful!

Answer 1

The best way I've found to get this done is to convert the 2D array to a 1D array, permit the 1D array, and then convert the array back to 2D.
nested_facet_filters = []
(params[:requests] || []).each_with_index do |r, ridx|
if r[:params].key?(:facetFilters) && r[:params][:facetFilters].kind_of?(Array) && r[:params][:facetFilters].first.kind_of?(Array)
# flatten the facet filters into a 1D array because Rails can't permit a 2D array
nested_facet_filters << ridx
r[:params][:facetFilters] = r[:params][:facetFilters].flatten
end
end
permitted = params.permit({
requests: [
:query,
:params => [
:facets => [],
:facetFilters => [],
]
]
}).to_h
# after permitting the params, we need to convert the facetFilters back into a 2D array
if nested_facet_filters.present?
nested_facet_filters.each do |idx|
# create map from facet key to array of values
d = {}
permitted[:requests][idx][:params][:facetFilters].each do |s|
split = s.split(':')
facet = split.first
value = split[1..-1].join(':')
if d.key?(facet)
d[facet] << s
else
d[facet] = [s]
end
end
# mutate facetFilters back to 2D array for posting to Algolia
permitted[:requests][idx][:params][:facetFilters] = d.values
end
end
There's been a merge request to accept 2D arrays for six years open in the Rails issue tracker [thread]...