CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-rails
imjp
imjp

Reputation: 6695

How to set "selected" in select_tag/options_from_collection_for_select

I've been searching stackoverflow for almost 2 hours now going through similar questions but the answers just don't seem to work.

I have the following code:

<%= select_tag "name_dropdown", options_from_collection_for_select(@models, "friendly_id", "name") %>

I'd like to display the option I've chosen previously as selected instead of going to the first tag by default.

In the other questions they've suggested to add the following (none of them work).

<%= select_tag "name_dropdown", options_from_collection_for_select(@models, "friendly_id", "name", "1") %>

Or: 

<%= select_tag "name_dropdown", options_from_collection_for_select(@models, "friendly_id", "name", @models.first.id) %>

ps. I'm using Rails 3.1.RC4

Upvotes: 16

Views: 21214

Answers (2)

CTS_AE
CTS_AE

Reputation: 14903

Throwing this answer here for people that are within a form block, because I too lost more time on this than I wish.

This example is particularly if you have a relationship like a belongs_to, because you will also need to explicitly state that it is the id you are updating rather than updating with a related object/instance. Otherwise you can end up with an ActiveRecord::AssociationTypeMismatch: RelatedModel expected, got "#" which is an instance of String.

<%=
  f.select :related_model_id,
    options_from_collection_for_select(
      RelatedModel.all, :id, :name, f.object.related_model_id)
%>

Upvotes: 0

Dylan Markow
Dylan Markow

Reputation: 124469

Assuming that in addition to your @models which contains the full list, you also have @model which contains the current record, then you can do the following:

<%= 
  select_tag "name_dropdown", 
  options_from_collection_for_select(@models, "friendly_id", "name", @model.id) 
%>

Basically, the fourth parameter to options_from_collection_for_select(...) should contain the id of the item you want to be selected. Your second code sample forces the selected id to be 1 every time, and the third sample you posted always makes the first item in @models selected, regardless of the actual currently selected model.

Upvotes: 29

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