Nested attributes not being inserted into table

Question

I have a situation where one of my nested fields is being passed to parameters but is not being inserted into the table.

My model Company has_one :incorporation. Incorporation has, right now anyway, one field, nested into the Company form as follows

<%= simple_form_for @company, url: url_for(action: @caction, controller: 'incorporations'), html: {id:"incorporationform"}, remote: false, update: { success: "response", failure: "error"} do |company| %>
    ...
    <%= company.simple_fields_for :incorporation do |f| %>
        <div class="padded-fields">
            <div class="form_subsection">
                <%= f.input :trademark_search, as: :radio_buttons, label: 'Would you like us to do a trademark search and provide advice regarding any issues we identify in relation to the name you have selected?', input_html: { class: 'form-control radio radio-false' } %>
            </div>
        </div>
    <% end %>
    ...
<% end %>

The new and create methods in the controller are as follows

def new
    @user=current_user
    @company = @user.companies.build
    @incorporation = @company.build_incorporation
    @action = "new"
    @caction = "create"
    @remote=false
end

def create
    @snapshot="incorporation"
    @company = current_user.companies.build(company_params)
    @incorporation = @company.build_incorporation

    if @company.save
        current_user.companies << @company
        if params[:final_submit]
            redirect_to incorporations_index_path
        else
            redirect_to edit_incorporation_path(@incorporation), notice: "Successfuly saved incorporation info."
        end
    else
        render 'new', notice: "Something went wrong; form unable to be saved."
    end
end

The problem is that when I select one of the radio buttons in the simple fields, the log shows that the data is sent to the parameters:

 Parameters: {"utf8"=>"✓",..., "company"=>{..."incorporation_attributes"=>{"trademark_search"=>"0"}},...}

But it is NOT being Inserted into the table. Instead, a new entry is inserted but only with the company_id, id, created_at and updated_at, all of which are perfectly accurate. There are no invalid parameter errors or anything like that.

My strong params look like this:

def company_params
        params.require(:company).permit(:id, :name,...,incorporation_attributes: [:title, :trademark_search, :user_id, :employee_stock_options, :final_submit, :submit, :_destroy],...)
end

So somehow the parameters are not linking up with the table insertion (if that makes sense). What might be going on here?

Thanks for any ideas.

Answer 1

Ok, there are some missing code, but i think issue is here:

@company = current_user.companies.build(company_params)
@incorporation = @company.build_incorporation

In first line you create company model together with incorporation model (which is present in company_params). Second line however overrides your incorporation model with a new one without any data. Since incorporation belongs_to company, the initial one with all the data is discarded.

Solution: remove the second line entirely and all will work.

OTHER ERRORS:

You do not need this line:

current_user.companies << @company

@company has already been build on current_user.companies scope, meaning that it already belongs to current_user. This will not cause any visible bugs, it's just waste of time for the server.

You are also missing id within incorporation_attributes - that means you will never be able to update or delete the data via nesting attributes (and you have _destroy field, so I assume you would like to do this at some point).