Ruby on Rails 3: AJAX call not refreshing div with link_to - ruby-on-rails

Question

I am new to Ruby on Rails and i am working through a few example applications in the O'Reilly Head First Rails book. In one of the examples there is a page made up of three partials. The middle partial is a list of items. There is a link right below this section that, when clicked, should refresh the div containing that partial. The book is running examples based off of Rails 2.3 i believe and i am using Rails 3.1. This is the example that the book is giving me:
routes.rb:
map.connect '/flights/:flight_id/seats', :action=>'flight_seats', :controller=>'seats'
seats_controller.rb:
def flight_seats
#flight = Flight.find(params[:flight_id])
render :partial => "flights/seat_list", :locals => {:seats => #flight.seats}
end
show.html.erb:
<div id="seats">
<%= render :partial=>"seat_list". :locals=>{:seats=>#flight.seats} %>
</div>
<$= link_to_remote("Refresh Seats", :url=>"/flights/#{#flight.id}/seats", method=>"get", :update=>"seats") %>
This example is also using prototype.js since that's what Rails 2.3 came with built in. Rails 3 has jQuery as the default JavaScript library. (not sure if that makes a big difference)
Here is what i have so far. This is getting the contents of the partial correctly, it's just not updating the "seats" div after the AJAX call gets the partial. My code:
routes.rb:
match 'flights/:flight_id/seats' => 'seats#flights_seats'
seats_controller.rb:
def flights_seats
#flight = Flight.find(params[:flight_id])
render :partial => "flights/seat_list", :locals => { :seats => #flight.seats }
end
show.html.erb:
<div id="seats">
<%= render :partial => 'seat_list', :locals => { :seats => #flight.seats } %>
</div>
<%= link_to "Refresh Seats", "/flights/#{#flight.id}/seats", :remote => true %>
Any idea why my <div id="seats"> won't refresh with the updated partial? I'm betting there is but i'll ask anyway, is something wrong with my code?

Answer 1

The :remote => true option is a bit weird if you aren't returning JSON data. You can wrap your HTML in a JSON object, though, which is what I typically do. Or if you want something closer to your existing code something like this should work for you:
<%= link_to "Refresh Seats", "/flights/#{#flight.id}/seats", :class => "refresh-seats" %>
In your javascript somewhere:
$(document).delegate(".refresh-seats", "click", function(e){
e.preventDefault();
$("#seats").load(this.href);
});