From the Ruby Noob Dept: Issue(s) with accepts_nested_attributes_for

27 Feb 2010

Finally took some time to jump in and refactor some nested forms at Thredded using Rails 2.3′s accepts_nested_attributes_for. Thanks to Ryan Bates’ screencasts on the topic it was fairly easy. A little code cleanup and everything worked as it should … other than one thing.

Can’t mass-assign these protected attributes

Noticed that error in my development logfiles after a particular form wasn’t being saved. A User class had some protected, and some not, attributes and until I added the Profile attributes to it, the nested form submitting a User and it’s associated Profile record would not save.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_one  :profile
  accepts_nested_attributes_for :profile
  attr_accessible :login, :email, :password, :password_confirmation
  # ...
end

Needed just the Profile attributes set as accessible and ready for mass assignment

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_one  :profile
  accepts_nested_attributes_for :profile
  attr_accessible :login, :email, :password, :password_confirmation, :profile_attributes
  # ...
end

Another case where you need to know at all times where and if properties of your classes are locked down or not.