Create many objects from an array of emails in a text area Rails

Question

I am making an app where you can invite participants to a project. I'd like to be able to invite many at once, just like when one types a bunch of email addresses into an email To: field. When Invite form is submitted, then new objects in my :participant table will be created for each corresponding email, with a status_column marked "invited".

I am new and, though I've done an 'update.all' in a form before, I've never 'created' many from one text area.

Answer 1

You could split on every comma and/or every whitespace:

def create
  params[:project][:participants_addresses] = params[:project][:participants_addresses].split(/\s|,/) if params[:project].try(:[], :participants_addresses).present?

  # from now params[:project][:participants_addresses] is an array of Strings
  # you can loop on each email address and create Participant records in the DB,
  # having the status as "invited"
end