Create multiple Addresses for one User with Formtastic - ruby-on-rails

Question

I currently have the following setup in my Rails 5 Application:
class User < ApplicationRecord
has_many :addresses
accepts_nested_attributes_for :addresses
end
class Address < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :user
end
The corresponding controller looks like this:
class UsersController < ApplicationController
def new
#user = User.new
end
def create
#user = User.new(user_params)
if #user.save
redirect_to users_path
else
render 'new', notice: "User could not be created"
end
end
private
def user_params
params.require(:user).permit(
:first_name, :last_name, :email, ...
)
end
end
Each User is supposed to have multiple Addresses (e.g. for billing and shipping) that I need to set during user creation. The form (made with formtastic) looks like this (outtake):
= semantic_form_for #user do |user|
= user.input :first_name
= user.semantic_fields_for Address.new do |shipping_address|
= shipping_address.input :city
= shipping_address.input :usage,
as: :hidden,
input_html: { value: 'shipping' }
= user.semantic_fields_for Address.new do |billing_address|
= billing_address.input :city
= billing_address.input :usage,
as: :hidden,
input_html: { value: 'billing' }
The problem is ofc that only the latter address is present in the sites parameters, so only one will be created.
How can I create multiple address for the same user?

Answer 1

To create nested records you should and seed the record and pass the association to fields_for.
For example you would do:
class UsersController < ApplicationController
# ...
def new
#user = User.new
# if we skipped this step there would be no address inputs on the form.
#user.addresses.new(value: 'shipping')
#user.addresses.new(value: 'billing')
end
end
<%= semantic_form_for(#user) do |f| %>
# ...
# fields_for iterates through #user.addresses creating
# inputs for each
<% f.semantic_fields_for :addresses do |a| %>
<%= a.inputs :street %>
<%= a.input :value, as: :hidden %>
<% end %>
<% end %>
Which would give the following params hash:
{
user: {
addresses_attributes: [
{
street: 'Wall Street',
value: 'shipping'
},
{
street: 'Broadway',
value: 'billing'
},
]
}
}
Note that proper pluralization is extremely important here!
You can then pass this to your user model and accepts_nested_attributes will do the rest of the work.
class UsersController < ApplicationController
# ...
def create
#user = User.new(user_params)
if #user.save
#...
else
# ...
end
end
private
def user_params
params.require(:user)
.permit(:email, :password, addresses_attributes: [:value, :street, :city]) # etc
end
end