Create Deeply Nested Rails Associations in One Form - ruby-on-rails

Question

I have a user form on my welcome page. As the user form gets submitted, I want to create a website record that belongs to the user and also a page record that belongs to that website.
I'm trying to use fields_for but I'm not sure what I'm doing correctly or incorrectly.
# welcome.html.erb
<%= form_for #user do |f| %>
<div>
<%= f.text_field :name' %>
</div>
<div>
<%= f.email_field :email %>
</div>
<div>
<%= f.password_field :password %>
</div>
<div>
<%= f.fields_for :website do |website_fields| %>
<%= website_fields.text_field :name, value: 'Untitled website' %>
<% end %>
</div>
<div>
<%= f.fields_for :page do |page_fields| %>
<%= page_fields.text_field :name, value: 'Untitled page' %>
<%= page_fields.text_field :content, class: 'js-PageContentHiddenField', value: 'Page content' %>
<% end %>
</div>
<div>
<%= f.submit 'Create account' %>
</div>
<% end %>
The pages controller looks like this...
# pages_controller.rb
def welcome
#user = User.new
#website = #user.websites.new
#page = #user.websites.pages.new
end
My routes are as follows...
# routes.rb
resources :users do
resources :websites do
resources :pages
end
end
The models look like this...
# User model
has_many :websites, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :pages, through: :websites
accepts_nested_attributes_for :websites
accepts_nested_attributes_for :pages
# Website model
belongs_to :user
has_many :pages, :dependent => :destroy
# Page model
belongs_to :website
And finally my users controller...
# User controller
def create
#user = User.new(shared_params)
#website = #user.websites.new(website_params)
#page = #website.pages.new(page_params)
if #user.save
auto_login(#user)
#redirect_to user_website_page_path
else
# redirect to wherever
end
end
private
def shared_params
params.require(:user).permit(:email, :password, :name)
end
def website_params
params.require(:user).permit(:name, :user_id)
end
def page_params
params.require(:user).permit(:name, :website_id)
end
The problem I'm having now is that the user name is being saved as the page and website name etc. It's some problem with my params I think. Also, I'm not sure how to set the redirect to redirect to the page after it's been created.
I've been playing around with various configurations for weeks now and I can't crack this. I can't stress how little I know what I'm doing here, would really love some help!

Answer 1

Callbacks are methods that get called at certain moments of an object's life cycle. With callbacks it is possible to write code that will run whenever an Active Record object is created, saved, updated, deleted, validated, or loaded from the database.
So as you need to create a website and a page when the user is being created the you can use a after_create or before_create callback. after_create gets executed after the object is created and the before_create callback gets executed before the object is being created.
So in your User model what you can do is:
after_create :create_website_and_page
def create_website_and_page
website = websites.build(name: 'Untitled Website')
page = website.pages.build(name: 'Untitled Page', content: 'Page Content')
website.save # This will automatically save the associated page too
end
So as soon as your user is created the website and page will also be created.
To get the content for the page from the form you can do:
In User model:
attr_accessor :page_content
This will create a virtual attribute on the user object which will not exist in database. Now in your form:
<%= f.hidden_field :page_content, class: 'js-PageContentHiddenField' %>
So append the content from javascript in this field. Now in your controller permit this attribute too:
params.require(:user).permit(:email, :password, :name, :page_content)
And then finally in the method we wrote above create_website_and_page change the line to this:
page = website.pages.build(name: 'Untitled Page', content: page_content)
This should do the required.
If you still wish to use the nested_form for any reason then the mistake you are doing is the params. Just place a debugger on the top of your create action and check the params. So to permit the parameters of website and page you have to do:
def user_params
params.require(:user).permit(:email, :password, :name, website_attributes: [:name], page_attributes: [:name, :website_id, :content])
end
but you will never get the website_id in params as you are creating that also from the same form. And also the user_id will not be required to be permitted as it will automatically get associated in case of the nested forms.