I collect tags in a nice javascript UI widget. It then takes all the tags and passes them to the server as tag1,tag2,tag3,etc in one text_field input. The server receives them:
params[:event][:tags] = params[:event][:tags].split(',') # convert to array
@event = Event.find(params[:id])
Is there a better way to convert the string to the array? It seems like a code smell. I have to put this both in update and in the new actions of the controller.
you could do this in the model:
I have seldom experience on mongoid. The following would work in active record (the only difference is the write_attribute part)
class Event
def tags=(value_from_form)
value_from_form = "" unless value_from_form.respond_to(:split)
write_attribute(:tags, value_from_form.split(','))
end
end
On the other hand, for consistency, you may want to do the following:
class Event
def tags_for_form=(value_from_form)
value_from_form = "" unless value_from_form.respond_to(:split)
self.tags = value_from_form.split(',')
end
def tags_for_form
self.tags
end
# no need to change tags and tags= methods. and tags and tags= methods would return an array and accept an array respectively
end
In the first case (directly overwriting the tags= method), tags= accepts a string but tags returns an array.
In the second case, tags_for_form= and tags_for_form accepts and returns string, while tags= and tags accepts and returns array.
tags in your form. ie f.text_field :tags_for_form. When the object received the value, it split it and store the array into tags=. So tags= expected to accept an array (if you assign a string to it, it will fail).I just create another model attribute that wraps the tags attribute like so:
class Event
def tags_list=(tags_string)
self.tags = tags_string.split(',').map(&:strip)
end
def tags_list
self.tags.join(',')
end
end
In your form, just read/write the tags_list attribute which will always accept, or return a preformated string. (The .map(:strip) part simply removes spaces on the ends in case the tags get entered with spaces: tag1, tag2, tag3.
PeterWong's answer misses the '?' from the respond_to() method;
class Event
def tags=(value_from_form)
value_from_form = "" unless value_from_form.respond_to?(:split)
write_attribute(:tags, value_from_form.split(','))
end
end
