Learning Rails: Live Edition

Form As a Wrapper

The form_for helper method sets up the entire form, creating the HTML form element but also providing context for all of the fields in the form. The form_for method is a bit sneaky, too. Both the new.html.erb view and the edit.html.erb view use form_for the same way:

<% form_for(@person) do |f| %>
...
<% end %>

However, the generated form element looks very different, depending on what exactly is in @person. If @person is just an empty object structure, form_for will work on the assumption that this is to create a new object. If @person actually contains data, however, form_for will assume that its form is editing that object and create a different-looking form element, plus a hidden field to enable Rails’ REST capabilities.

When given an empty @person object, form_for prepares for a new person:

<form action="/people" class="new_person" id="new_person" method="post"><div
style="margin:0;padding:0"><input name="authenticity_token" type="hidden"
value="f80a01b9f14d38e0816877e832637e3cc9e668a1" /></div>

Note that the action goes to people, generically. The class and id reflect a new person, and the method is simply post.

When given an @person object with content, however, form_for switches to editing a person:

<form action="/people/1" class="edit_person" id="edit_person_1" method="post">
<div style="margin:0;padding:0"><input name="_method" type="hidden"
value="put" /><input name="authenticity_token" type="hidden" value="f80a01b9f14d38e0816877e832637e3cc9e668a1" /></div> ...