[PATCH] Nested Object Support in Form Helper

Could you explain how you're using this in for example an update action? Since person.author doesn't exist by default, then Person.new(params[:person]) wouldn't work.

I think you mean post.author right?

I'll agree that the example provide probably isn't the most useful or clear since you probably wouldn't be editing author details when editing a post, I just used it since that was the fixtures used in the form_helper test case.

To provide a better example, given a Person class that has a has_one address property that points to an Address class with street and post_code properties, this change would allow you to use the form helper to create a form that lets you edit a persons address while editing their other details, like this:

text_field 'person', 'address.street'
text_field 'person', 'address.post_code'

as opposed to

@address = person.address
text_field 'address', 'street'
text_field 'address', 'post_code'

However, I think your point about the ugliness in the controller is correct and this patch might also require changes to attributes= in ActiveRecord::Base to propagate changes to associated objects for subhashes in the params hash and in this case create an Address instance and assign to self.address if it doesn't already exist. I can look at adding this change to the patch if you are interested.

Does that answer your questions?

Neat idea, worth pursuing..