Create multiple Addresses for one User with Formtastic

Question

I currently have the following setup in my Rails 5 Application:

class User < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :addresses
  accepts_nested_attributes_for :addresses
end

class Address < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :user
end

The corresponding controller looks like this:

class UsersController < ApplicationController
  def new
    @user = User.new
  end

  def create
    @user = User.new(user_params)

    if @user.save
      redirect_to users_path
    else
      render 'new', notice: "User could not be created"
    end
  end

  private

  def user_params
    params.require(:user).permit(
      :first_name, :last_name, :email, ...
    )
  end
end

Each User is supposed to have multiple Addresses (e.g. for billing and shipping) that I need to set during user creation. The form (made with formtastic) looks like this (outtake):

= semantic_form_for @user do |user|
  = user.input :first_name
  = user.semantic_fields_for Address.new do |shipping_address|
    = shipping_address.input :city
    = shipping_address.input :usage,
      as: :hidden,
      input_html: { value: 'shipping' }
  = user.semantic_fields_for Address.new do |billing_address|
    = billing_address.input :city
    = billing_address.input :usage,
      as: :hidden,
      input_html: { value: 'billing' }

The problem is ofc that only the latter address is present in the sites parameters, so only one will be created.

How can I create multiple address for the same user?

Answer 1

To create nested records you should and seed the record and pass the association to fields_for.

For example you would do:

class UsersController < ApplicationController
  # ...
  def new
    @user = User.new
    # if we skipped this step there would be no address inputs on the form.
    @user.addresses.new(value: 'shipping')
    @user.addresses.new(value: 'billing')
  end
end

---

<%= semantic_form_for(@user) do |f| %>
  # ...
  # fields_for iterates through @user.addresses creating 
  # inputs for each
  <% f.semantic_fields_for :addresses do |a| %>
    <%= a.inputs :street %>
    <%= a.input :value,  as: :hidden %>
  <% end %>
<% end %>

Which would give the following params hash:

{
  user: {
    addresses_attributes: [
      {
        street: 'Wall Street',
        value: 'shipping'
      },
      {
        street: 'Broadway',
        value: 'billing'
      },
    ]
  }
}

Note that proper pluralization is extremely important here! You can then pass this to your user model and accepts_nested_attributes will do the rest of the work.

class UsersController < ApplicationController
  # ...
  def create
    @user = User.new(user_params)
    if @user.save
      #...
    else
      # ...
    end
  end

  private
    def user_params
      params.require(:user)
            .permit(:email, :password, addresses_attributes: [:value, :street, :city]) # etc
    end
end