How can I save an entire list of items true or false?

Question

I'm following Ryan Bates, Railscast episode 52 and I've translated relevant parts of the code to work with Rails 3.0.0.beta2. In Ryan's case, he simply marks items incomplete and saves a timestamp. If an Item contains a timestamp the model returns the item in the completed list.

I'm attempting to save ALL values true or false, depending on whether the check_box_tag is selected or not (using boolean). I am able to save ONLY selected items, true or false. How can I save an entire list of items true or false, depending on whether the checkbox is selected? The following is my attempt:

controller logic:

 def yardsign
    Add.update_all(["yardsign=?", true], :id => params[:yard_ids])
    redirect_to adds_path
  end

html.erb:

<%= form_tag yardsign_adds_path, :method => :put do %>
<% @adds.each do |add| %>
  <td><%= check_box_tag "yard_ids[]", add.id %></td>
    <% end %>
<% end %>

routes.rb

resources :adds do
    collection do
     put :yardsign 
  end
end

Terminal

Started POST "/adds/yardsign" for 127.0.0.1 at 2010-04-15 19:22:49
  Processing by AddsController#yardsign as HTML
  Parameters: {"commit"=>"Update", "yardsigntakers"=>["1", "2"], "authenticity_token"=>"3arhsxg/Ky+0W7RNM2T3QditMTJmOnLR5CqmMYWN4Qw="}
  User Load (0.3ms)  SELECT "users".* FROM "users" WHERE ("users"."id" = 1) LIMIT 1
  SQL (1.8ms)  UPDATE "adds" SET yardsign='t' WHERE ("adds"."id" IN (1, 2))
Redirected to http://localhost:3000/adds

Answer 1

The HTML specification says unchecked check boxes are not successful, and thus web browsers do not send them

You'll need to do something like the check_box helper does and add a hidden input for unchecked items.