Alternative for accepts_nested_attributes_for - maybe virtus

Question

I\'m relatively new to rails and finally found the right way to use accepts_nested_attributes_for.

However, there are some serious resources on the web who

Answer 1

It's much easier to use virtus instead of accepts_nested_attributes_for than I thought. The most important requirement was to dare to make things that were not covered in any of the tutorials I read yet.

Step by step:

1. I added gem 'virtus' to the Gemfile and ran bundle install.

2. I wrote a file models/contact.rb and wrote the following code:

   class Contact
     include Virtus
   
     extend ActiveModel::Naming
     include ActiveModel::Conversion
     include ActiveModel::Validations
   
     attr_reader :name
     attr_reader :number
   
   
     attribute :name, String
     attribute :number, Integer
   
     def persisted?
       false
     end
   
     def save
       if valid?
         persist!
         true
       else
         false
       end
     end
   
   private
   
     def persist!
       @person = Person.create!(name: name)
       @phones = @person.phones.create!(number: number)
     end
   end
   

3. Then I ran rails generate controller contacts and filled *models/contacts_controller.rb* with

   class ContactsController < ApplicationController
   
     def new
   
       @contact = Contact.new
   
     end
   
     def create
   
       @contact = Contact.new(contact_params)
       @contact.save
       redirect_to people_path
   
     end
   
     def contact_params
   
       params.require(:contact).permit(:name, :number)
   
     end
   
   end
   

4. The next step was the view. I created views/contacts/new.html.erb and wrote this basic form

   <%= form_for @contact do |f| %>
     
   
       <%= f.label :name %>
   
       <%= f.text_field :name %>
     
   
     
   
       <%= f.label :number %>
   
       <%= f.text_field :number %>
     
   
     <%= f.submit %>
   <% end %>
   

5. Of course I also needed to add the route resources :contacts

That's it. Maybe it could be done more elegant. Maybe it would also pay to use only the Contacts-class, also for the other CRUD-actions. I didn't try that yet...

You can find all changes here: https://github.com/speendo/PhoneBook/tree/virtus/app/models