Undefined method 'permit' for "89718":String - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm writing a simple Rails api that connects to a legacy SQL Server database. I am testing my REST actions for my contacts controller. When using FactoryGirl to create test objects, I ran into the error message mentioned in the title. My index and show actions work fine, but the create action is throwing this error. The relevant parts of my contacts_controller look like this:
def create
contact = Contact.new(contact_params)
if contact.save
render json: contact, status: 201, location: [:api, contact]
else
render json: { errors: contact.errors }, status: 422
end
end
...
private
def contact_params
params.require(:contact).permit(:name, :address_1, :city, :zip_code_5, :country)
end
And here is the relevant test code:
describe "POST #create" do
context "when is successfully created" do
before(:each) do
#user = FactoryGirl.create :user
#contact = FactoryGirl.create :contact
post :create, { contact: #contact }
end
it "renders the json representation for the contact record just created" do
contact_response = json_response
expect(contact_response[:name]).to eq #contact_attributes[:name]
end
it { should respond_with 201 }
end
end
The model:
class Contact < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
validates :name, :address_1, :city, :zip_code_5, :country, :createddate, presence: true
end
The serializer (using the active_model_serializer gem):
class ContactSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
belongs_to :user
attributes :id, :name, :address_1, :city, :zip_code_5, :country
end
Things I've tried include:
Changing the 'belongs_to' to 'has_one' in the serializer (no change)
Removing the 'zip_code_5' from the permite...require line (strangely, I still got the error message about this property, perhaps because of the serializer?)
Removing the serializer (no change)
Any thoughts? I'm happy to provide any more necessary information.
EDIT
The value of #contact when it's passed to the create action:
#<Contact id: 89815, user_id: "d67b0d57-8f7f-4854-95b5-f07105741fa8", title: nil, firstname: nil, lastname: nil, name: "Alene Stark", company: nil, address_1: "72885 Bauch Island", address_2: nil, address_3: nil, city: "Joestad", state: nil, zip_code_5: "98117", zip_code_4: nil, country: "MF", status_id: 1, createddate: "2015-10-23 07:00:00", lastmodifieddate: "2012-11-29 08:00:00", errorreasonid: nil, computergenerated: true, sandbox: true, emailsubject: nil, jobtitle: nil, mergevar1: nil, mergevar2: nil, mergevar3: nil, mergevar4: nil, mergevar5: nil, mergevar6: nil, mergevar7: nil, mergevar8: nil, mergevar9: nil, mergevar10: nil, clientid: 1, isshared: true>
The value of params[:contact] at runtime:
{"city"=>"Seattle", "state"=>"WA", "zip_code_5"=>"98117", "country"=>"US"}
I also have my wrap parameters set to :json format, if that's relevant.

Answer 1

I used the console to recreate what my test was doing. I discovered that Contact was being passed as a string, instead of a hash. After a little Googling, I passed the #contact object as #contact.attributes, which passes a hash of the object. This solved the 'permit' problem, thanks for pointing me in the right direction.