Ruby on Rails + Formtastic: Not checking checkboxes for multiple checked answers

EDIT: Solution at bottom and selected answer.

I've been working with Formtastic for a while and for the most part like how it simplifies form creation. Unfortunately, I've run into a snag with using checkboxes. For some reason after I save/submit my form, the checkboxes are not getting checked.

Code Snippets

= ff.input :answer, :as => :check_boxes, :collection => ff.object.survey_question.options, :label => ff.object.survey_question.question

-- .options collection method seen below:

def options
    opts = {}
    survey_options.each do |option|
        opts[option.option] = option.id.to_s
    end
    opts
end

Submission

The form returns the following (truncated) params:

params[:response][:question_responses_attributes] =

{
  "0"=>
     {"answer"=>"42", "id"=>"1175"},
   ...,

   "3"=>
     {"answer"=>["", "52", "54", "56"], "id"=>"1178"},
   ...
 }

Which writes to the database as

--- - '' - '52' - '54' - '56'

I haven't been able to get the checkboxes (using the code input above) UNLESS there is only ONE answer checked. And only if the I strip out everything on submission and store the response in a custom format.

E.G.

params[:response][:question_responses_attributes].each do |key, values|
    if values[:answer].is_a?(Array)
        values[:answer] = values[:answer].delete_if {|x| x == ""}.join(",")
    end
end

will strip out the first blank option, and then split the array into a comma delimited string.

52,54,56

What I've tried so far

= ff.input :answer, :as => :check_boxes, :collection => ff.object.survey_question.options, :checked => ff.object.answer.scan(/\w+/), :label => ff.object.survey_question.question

which splits the answer into an array.

= ff.input :answer, :as => :check_boxes, :collection => ff.object.survey_question.options, :label => ff.object.survey_question.question, :input_html => {:checked => true}

which checks ALL of the check boxes.

= ff.input :answer, :as => :check_boxes, :collection => ff.object.survey_question.options, :label => ff.object.survey_question.question, :input_html => {:checked => ff.object.answer.scan(/\w+/)}

which also checks ALL of the check boxes.

NOTE:

 = ff.input :answer, :as => :check_boxes, :collection => ff.object.survey_question.options, :label => ff.object.survey_question.question

WORKS if there is only ONE checked answer (56) and I custom format the params before I save them to the database

Other Options??

Are there ANY other options? According to the Formtastic WIKI they no longer support :selected or :checked and offered another option setting a default value to be used in the after initialize model or in controller with a select and text box. I have not been able to find a working way to do so with checkboxes.

I'm open to using an extra bit of js code to check the boxes after the fact, but I would rather do it as the form is rendered with rails...

Thanks in advance for your help!

EDIT

I finally solved this issue. It had nothing to do with how the data was getting saved and everything to do with how I was passing the data to Formtastic.

First, I had to create join table between the question response table and the survey option table. Then I had to format how the data was accessing ALL of the survey options (based on the question) and ALL of the checked options for the question response:

class QuestionResponse
    has_many :question_response_options
    has_many :survey_options, :through => :question_response_options

    # Takes all the survey options that are stored in the join
    # table and puts the id's into an array
    def question_response_options
        opts = []
            self.survey_options.each do |option|
        opts << option.id.to_s
        end
        opts
    end
end


class QuestionResponseOption
    belongs_to :question_response
    belongs_to :survey_option
end


class SurveyQuestion < ActiveRecord::Base
    # Creates hash of option name to id
    # { "Law and Order" => 13 }
    def options
        opts = {}
        survey_options.each do |option|
            opts[option.option] = option.id.to_s
        end
        opts
    end
end

Then in Formtastic, I had to change up how I sent information across:

= ff.input :question_response_options, :as => :check_boxes, :collection => ff.object.survey_question.options, :for => :question_response_options

The input had to be for the join table, the collection needed to be all of the options for the given question, and the :for let me join the two by ID.

Only thing I had to do after that is save the checked options myself, which I did in the controller.

Solution

I finally solved this issue. It had nothing to do with how the data was getting saved and everything to do with how I was passing the data to Formtastic.

class QuestionResponse
    has_many :question_response_options
    has_many :survey_options, :through => :question_response_options

    # Takes all the survey options that are stored in the join
    # table and puts the id's into an array
    def question_response_options
        opts = []
            self.survey_options.each do |option|
        opts << option.id.to_s
        end
        opts
    end
end


class QuestionResponseOption
    belongs_to :question_response
    belongs_to :survey_option
end


class SurveyQuestion < ActiveRecord::Base
    # Creates hash of option name to id
    # { "Law and Order" => 13 }
    def options
        opts = {}
        survey_options.each do |option|
            opts[option.option] = option.id.to_s
        end
        opts
    end
end

Then in Formtastic, I had to change up how I sent information across:

= ff.input :question_response_options, :as => :check_boxes, :collection => ff.object.survey_question.options, :for => :question_response_options

The input had to be for the join table, the collection needed to be all of the options for the given question, and the :for let me join the two by ID.

Only thing I had to do after that is save the checked options myself, which I did in the controller.