Associated model isn't being created - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm a complete rails newbie, so forgive me if this is trivial.
I have an Inventory model that either belongs_to a Store or a Traveling Party:
class Inventory < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :trader, :polymorphic => true
end
class Store < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :inventory, :as => :trader, :dependent => :destroy
end
class TravelingParty < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :travelers, :dependent => :destroy
has_one :inventory, :as => :trader, :dependent => :destroy
validates_presence_of :speed, :ration, :position
accepts_nested_attributes_for :travelers, :reject_if => :reject_traveler, :allow_destroy => true
accepts_nested_attributes_for :inventory, :allow_destroy => true
def reject_traveler(attributes)
attributes['profession'].blank? and attributes['name'].blank?
end
end
I created a form that, when submitted, creates a Traveling Party and a number of Travelers. Now I'd like the form to also create an Inventory and initialize all the variables to 0. I know the following doesn't address variable initialization, but it doesn't even seem to put a row of null values into the Inventory database table.
class TravelingPartiesController < ApplicationController
def new
#traveling_party = TravelingParty.new
5.times do
traveler = #traveling_party.travelers.build
end
#inventory = #traveling_party.inventory.create
end
def create
#traveling_party = TravelingParty.new(params[:traveling_party])
if #traveling_party.save
flash[:notice] = "Successfully created traveling party and travelers."
redirect_to '/store/'
else
flash[:error] = "Please specify a leader."
redirect_to '/new/'
end
end
def index
end
end
For good measure, here is what the database schema looks like:
ActiveRecord::Schema.define(:version => 20111018224808) do
create_table "inventories", :force => true do |t|
t.integer "ox"
t.integer "food"
t.integer "clothing"
t.integer "ammunition"
t.integer "money"
t.integer "axle"
t.integer "wheel"
t.integer "tongue"
t.datetime "created_at"
t.datetime "updated_at"
t.integer "trader_id"
end
create_table "stores", :force => true do |t|
t.string "name"
t.integer "location"
t.integer "priceScale"
t.datetime "created_at"
t.datetime "updated_at"
end
# Could not dump table "travelers" because of following StandardError
# Unknown type 'relations' for column 'traveling_party_id'
create_table "traveling_parties", :force => true do |t|
t.integer "speed"
t.integer "ration"
t.integer "position"
t.datetime "created_at"
t.datetime "updated_at"
end
end
Is there a reason the inventory database table isn't being affected at all? And once that works, what would be the best way to initialize a traveling_party.inventory to have all 0s? (i.e., values for ox, food, clothing, etc).

Answer 1

This may because your inventories table does not include a 'trader_type'. This is required for polymorphic associations.
create_table "inventories", :force => true do |t|
t.integer "trader_id"
t.string "trader_type"
end
Edit:
To set all the values initially to 0, the best way would be to put a default value onto the fields in the table. (If you want it to always be initialized to 0 if there is no other option, otherwise they will default to nil)
I believe you can create a migration with
change_table(:inventories) do |t|
t.change :ox, :integer, :default => 0
end