kinderman.net

For those of you using the composite_primary_keys gem as of version 0.9.0, you may encounter an issue if you try to do something like:

class Reading < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :reader, :class_name => "User"
end

When a User is loaded up from the database via the reader association, the CPK modification to ActiveRecord::Reflection::AssociationReflection#primary_key_name incorrectly returns "user_id" as the primary key name. If you encounter this issue, I've submitted a patch against revision 124 that can be obtained here.

Hopefully this will get fixed in the next release. More hopefully, I won't need to care by then.

A few weeks ago (okay, more than a few weeks ago, it took me a while to write this), I discussed the problems involved with passing nested hash parameters to named routes in Rails. My coding pair and I discovered another bug (still using rev 5522) when passing hash parameters to a named route in Rails, this time when the hash contains arrays. For example, consider the following call to a named route:

person_url(:name => ['Ryan', 'Kinderman'])

"http://someurl.com/people?name[]=Ryan&name[]=Kinderman"

"http://someurl.com/people?name=Ryan%2FKinderman"

person_url(:name => {0 => 'Ryan', 1 => 'Kinderman})

What I present here is a detailed explanation of the problem, with instructions at the end on how to install my plugin patch to fix it. My explanation and patch address the issues for both nested and array parameters. There are a number of methods involved in the solution to this problem. It may be useful at this point for you to refer to Jamis Buck's excellent articles on the gory details of Rails route recognition and generation.

The Rails methods involved in processing route parameters are listed below, in their general call sequence:

• ActionController::Base.url_for in action_controller/base.rb
OR
• ActionView::Helpers::UrlHelper#link_to in action_view/helpers/url_helper.rb
• RouteSet#generate in action_controller/routing.rb
• RouteSet#options_as_params in action_controller/routing.rb
• Array#to_param in active_support/core_ext/array/conversions.rb
• Route#generate in action_controller/routing.rb
• Route#write_generation in action_controller/routing.rb
• Route#append_query_string in action_controller/routing.rb
• Route#build_query_string in action_controller/routing.rb

The other specific issue lies in the Route#build_query_string method. Take a look at the method, and notice the part that looks like:

if value.class == Array
  key <<  '[]'
else    
  value = [ value ] 
end     

So, those are the issues involved in why array and nested hash parameters don't work properly in calls to url_for. Rather than going through my solution, I'm offering it as a Rails plugin with full unit test coverage, and plan to submit it as an actual patch to the Rails team, with the code cleaned up a bit more. Maybe there are reasons why this sort of thing isn't supported, but I can't think what they might be. I'll post updates here if and when I get more information on this. If you have comments or questions on this patch or parts of the code, please let me know.

You can install the Rails plugin by typing the following into your command-line: ruby script/plugin install http://svn.ryankinderman.net/nested_params_patch To see the issues I've discussed first-hand, after installing the plugin, take a look at controller_test.rb.

Addendum: I checked, and as of revision 6141 of Rails, the issues covered by this article are still present, and the plugin still fixes them.

Addendum (2007/04/03): I've just got around to confirming that, as rwd's commented, the bug has been fixed. If you're using revision 6343 or later of Rails, you probably aren't going to need this patch. Yay!

I've never (as of rev 5522) been able to pass a nested hash as parameters to url_for and have it flatten it properly on the generated URL. I encountered the problem again the other day and, having had just about enough, decided to try and nip it in the bud.

The problem I was having occurred when tried to make an HTTP request to a named route such as:

people_url(:person => { :name => 'Bob', :profession => 'Developer' })

When I've encountered this problem in the past, I could never find any information from someone who's actually solved the problem. There are a few patches submitted as tickets to the Rails devs, but one seems to be a duplicate of the other, and neither seems to fix this problem on Edge, at least not for my particular use case.

The root of this particular problem lies in a method in the action_controller/routing.rb file within actionpack/actioncontroller, in the options_as_params of the RoutingSet class. The method, without comments, looks like this:

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def options_as_params(options)
  options_as_params = options[:controller] ? { :action => "index" } : {}
  options.each do |k, value|
    options_as_params[k] = value.to_param
  end
  options_as_params
end

To solve this problem, I changed the method to look like this:

def options_as_params(options)
  options_as_params = options[:controller] ? { :action => "index" } : {}
  options.parameterize do |param_key, param_value|
    options_as_params[param_key] = param_value.to_param
  end
  options_as_params
end

{
  :person => {
    :name => 'Bob',
    :profession => 'Developer'
  }
}

{
  :'person[name]' => 'Bob',
  :'person[profession]' => 'Developer'
}

class Hash

  def flatten(superkey)
    flattened_hash = {}
    self.each do |key, value|
      flattened_hash["#{superkey}[#{key}]".to_sym] = value
    end
    flattened_hash
  end
  
  def parameterize
    self.each do |k, value|
      if value.is_a?(Hash)
        value.flatten(k).each { |fk, fv| yield fk, fv }
      else
        yield k, value
      end
    end       
  end

end