Rails 3: nested_form, collection_select, accepts_nested_attributes_for and fields_for

Question

Update: answered here.

There are lots of good questions and answers here and on the interweb about getting nested_form, collection_select, accepts_nested_attributes_for

Answer 1

Huzzah! Here's the code which makes all this work. Bit verbose but didn't want to leave anything out. My main learnings:

• you need to make the child attributes attr_accessible in the parent model

• you need to make the parent and child ids attr_accessible in the join table model

• it makes life easier if you build at least one child instance in the parent controller.

contributor.rb model

class Contributor < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible  #nothing relevant 
  has_many :contributors_isbns
  has_many :isbns, :through => :contributors_isbns

isbn.rb model

class Isbn < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :contributors_attributes, :contributor_id, :istc_id #etc
  belongs_to  :istc
  has_many   :contributors, :through => :contributors_isbns
  has_many   :contributors_isbns
  accepts_nested_attributes_for :contributors #if you omit this you get a missing block error

contributors_isbn model

class ContributorsIsbn < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :isbn
  belongs_to :contributor
  attr_accessible :isbn_id, :contributor_id

isbn controller

 def new
    @isbn  = Isbn.new
    @title = "Create new ISBN"
    1.times {@isbn.contributors.build}
  end

new.html.erb

<td class="main">
<%= nested_form_for @isbn, :validate => false do |f| %>
<h1>Create new ISBN</h1>
<%= render 'shared/error_messages', :object => f.object %>
<%= render 'fields', :f => f %>
  <div class="actions">
    <%= f.submit "Create" %>
  </div>  

<% end %>

_fields.html.erb

<%= field_set_tag 'Identifier Details' do %>

<li>
<%= f.label 'Title prefix' %>
<%= f.text_field :descriptivedetail_titledetail_titleelement_titleprefix %>
</li>
<li>
<%= f.label 'Title without prefix' %>
<%= f.text_field :descriptivedetail_titledetail_titleelement_titlewithoutprefix %>
</li>
<li>
<%= f.label 'ISTC' %>
<%= f.collection_select(:istc_id, Istc.all, :id, :title_title_text, :prompt => true) %>
</li>

<% end %>


<%= field_set_tag 'Contributor' do %>
<li>
<%= f.label 'Contributor Sequence Number' %>
<%= f.text_field :descriptivedetail_contributor_sequencenumber%>
</li>

<%= f.fields_for :contributors, :validate => false do |contributor_form| %>
<li>
<%= contributor_form.label :personnameinverted, 'Contributor Name' %>
<%= contributor_form.collection_select(:isbn_id, Contributor.all, :id, :personnameinverted ) %>
</li>
<%= contributor_form.link_to_remove "[-] Remove this contributor"%>
<% end %>
<%= f.link_to_add "[+] Add a contributor", :contributors  %>


<li>
<%= f.label 'Contributor Role' %>
<%= f.text_field :descriptivedetail_contributor_contributorrole  %>
</li>

<% end %>