CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-rails
Leahcim
Leahcim

Reputation: 41929

Rails: turning text form into select box

to be honest, I almost find html forms more straightforward than Rails form helpers. I'm trying to turn this text form into a select box with options Canada, United States, Mexico as strings

 <p><%= f.label :country %><br />
  <%= f.text_field :country %></p>

Because the model is already represented in the block variable "f", I'm not sure how to alter the syntax because the model is usually represented first in the complicated hash of variables and options http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/FormOptionsHelper.html#method-i-select

Can anyone show me?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2951

Answers (2)

Andrew Marshall
Andrew Marshall

Reputation: 96934

The following should work:

<%= f.select :country, [["Canada", "Canada"], ["Mexico", "Mexico"], ["United States", "United States"]] %>

You can read more in the Rails Guides & API docs. As @ka8751 says, though, if you have a Country model, collection_select makes this far easier:

<%= f.collection_select :country, Country.all, :id, :name %>

where :id is used for the actual value of the <option> tag and :name is used for what is displayed.

If you don't have a Country model, you should consider one for the sake of database normalization.

Upvotes: 9

ka8725
ka8725

Reputation: 2918

I think you have mistake here: you are using text_field instead of select method. To make select box I would recommend you to use collection_select method:

<%= f.collection_select :country, Country.all, :id, :name %>

Also there is a wonderful gem country_select to solve your problem and it used by formtastic formtastic which I also recommend you to use for building your forms.

Upvotes: 0

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