Rails: Submitting an array of child elements - ruby

Question

I'm trying to submit a form which is supposed to have an array of child elements. I'm not sure if I have it correctly. Can somebody help me refactor?
I have a couple of models user and item. A userhas_many :items.
The form that sends the information for user and items look like the following -
<%= form_for(#user) do |f| %>
<% f.text_field :name %>
<% f.fields_for :items do |item| %>
<% item.text_field :name %>
<% item.text_field :price %>
<% end %>
<% end %>
I have the following in my controller -
def create
#user = User.new(user_params)
respond_to do |format|
if #user.save
#items = #user.items.build(item_params)
if #items.save
format.html { redirect_to #user, notice: 'User was successfully created.' }
end
format.html { redirect_to #user, notice: 'User was successfully created. But there was a problem saving the items.' }
else
format.html { render action: 'new' }
format.json { render json: #userd.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
private
def user_params
params.require(:user).permit(:name)
end
def item_params
params.require(:user).require(:item).permit(:name, :price)
end
When I save the user, only 1 record of items get saved, meaning - the data isn't being passed as an array of objects. How do I get this to work?

Answer 1

It looks like right now you are only ever telling Rails to build one item object. Your form is passing up the two parameters for an item, and in your controller you call build once, so #items is only ever set equal to the single Item returned by build. Unless their are hidden parts of your form you aren't showing, it looks like you're only setting one set of options for a user's items. If your goal is to have an array of many items with identical parameters, the fastest fix would be to just do this within the logic of your create action. There are many ways you could implement that (here is one simple way):
#items = []
x.times { #items << #user.items.build(item_params) }
If you're looking to send a request from the form with multiple unique items, you'll have to add more fields to your form, since currently you are only sending one set of parameters.

Answer 2

There are few corrections to be made in your code.
In your users_controller
def new
#user = User.new
3.times do #this will generate three records of items
#user.items.build
end
end
def create
#user = User.new(user_params)
respond_to do |format|
if #user.save
format.html { redirect_to #user, notice: 'User was successfully created.' }
else
format.html { render action: 'new' }
format.json { render json: #userd.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
private
def user_params
params.require(:user).permit(:name,items_attributes: [:name,price])
end