custom form inside a repeat, passing a value from the repeat context into the form

[hobo_hippy]

Ok. I'm getting the custom form to do almost everything I need it to.
Only problem is I don't want the user to have to specify what item
they're adding (a belongs to association of the model). I'm writing
the form in a repeat block where the local context is the item I want
add. Something like

<repeat with="&@foods">
<%= this.name %>
<%= this.price %>

<form with="&OrderAssist.create">
<field-list fields="toppings, food"/>
<submit label="add"/>
</form>

</repeat>

so i figured there must be some way to pass the current food id to the
OrderAssist. However, I feel like the local context would get jumbled
because inside the form "this" would refer to the OrderAssist, not the
food.

How do I pass the current food from the repeat to the OrderAssist i'm
creating rather than making a user choose a food from a select button?

[hobo_hippy]

To be clear, i don't want to list the "food" field, I want the form to
use the current food from the repeat. How can I do this?

[Matt Jones]

If you've got a belongs_to relation between OrderAssist and Food, thus:

class Food
has_many :order_assists
end

class OrderAssist
belongs_to :food
end

then you can do this:

<repeat with="&@foods">
<form with="&this.order_assists.build">
<% in here, this.food should be set correctly. <form> will (I believe) even create a hidden-field for it if you don't mention it in the field-list %>
</form>
</repeat>

You probably don't want to use OrderAssist.create in any case - that spams unattached records into your DB...

--Matt Jones

[hobo_hippy]

that works nicely. The .build function is cool... where can i find
documentation for that? and what do you mean .create spams unattached
records in the database?

-hobohippy

[kevinpfromnm]

create makes a new instance and saves it to the database immediately.  by using it in a view, anytime the view is loaded a new record will be created.

[hobo_hippy]

oh. that makes sense. thanks i'll avoid that in the future.

one last tweak on the .build example above. I'm trying to figure out
how to change the field-list such that instead of a drop-menu select-
many, i want a list of checkboxes for each of the toppings. Is there
an easy way to do this?

-hoboHippy

[hobo_hippy]

this is a new problem, kinda, so i'm gonna start another thread