Rails collection_select search issue

Question

I'm trying to display unique counties listed in my database in select box for a property database. I've figured out how to do this, but now I can't figure out how to access the selected value of the select. This mainly has do with the way the HTML select name is outputted.

My form code, county is an attribute for my property model:

  <%= collection_select(:property, :county, @Counties, :county, :county, {:prompt => true}) %>

This outputs the HTML

<select id="property_county" name="property[county]"><option value="">Please select</option>
<option value="Pearl River">Pearl River</option>
<option value="Marion">Marion</option>
<option value="Stone">Stone</option>
<option value="Lamar">Lamar</option>
<option value="Forrest">Forrest</option>
<option value="Jones">Jones</option>
<option value="Washington">Washington</option></select>

It is the []'s in the select name "property[county] that is giving me fits. The other items in the search form use select_tag so the output is simply "min_price" rather than "property[min_price]". This is causing a syntax error when I'm trying to put together my search results array in my Property model:

def self.find_by_lcc(params)
where = []
unless params[:mls].blank?
where << "mls = :mls" 
end
unless params[:county].blank?
where << "county = :county"
end 
unless params[:min_acreage].blank?
where << "acreage >= :min_acreage" 
end
unless params[:max_acreage].blank?
where << "acreage <= :max_acreage" 
end
unless params[:min_price].blank?
where << "price >= :min_price" 
end
unless params[:max_price].blank?
where << "price <= :max_price" 
end

if where.empty?
[]
else
find(:all,
:conditions => [where.join(" AND "), params],
:order => "city, price desc")
end

Due to the county problem all the records are being listed rather than just the properties within that county. The browser URL string I'm getting is:

public/land?mls=&property[county]=Stone&min_acreage=0&max_acreage=16000000&min_price=0&max_price=1600000&commit=Search

I have searched for answers on this for a couple of days and I'm sure it's a simple syntax method I need to use in compiling my search array.

Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

I think you are looking for

params[:property][:county]

Whenever you see a name like xxx[yyy], Rails automatically builds hashes in the params object for you that are first accessed with key xxx, then key yyy.