belongs_to objects in rails

Question

Hi I'm currently building a little forum application with rails (3). I'm fairly new in the Rails matter and I got stuck with the topics.

I have 2 models (topic & topic_reply)

topic model:

class Topic < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :board
  belongs_to :user
  has_many :topic_replies, :dependent => :destroy

  TOPIC_TYPES = ["Non-support", "Question"]
  validates :topic_type, :inclusion => TOPIC_TYPES
end

topic reply model:

class TopicReply < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :topic
  belongs_to :user
end

When I'm creating a topic everything is displaying fine except for the topic_replies (all the posts within the topic)

The reason is: my topic_reply object saves everything correctly except it doesn't save the the topic_id in the object and thus in my db.

here's a part of my topic controller to create a topic:

 # GET /topics/new
  # GET /topics/new.xml
  def new
    @topic       = Topic.new
    @topic_reply = @topic.topic_replies.build

    respond_to do |format|
      format.html # new.html.erb
    end
  end

  # POST /topics
  # POST /topics.xml
  def create
    @topic                 = Topic.new(params[:topic])
    @topic.id_board        = @board.id

    @topic_reply  = @topic.topic_replies.build(params[:topic_reply])
    @topic_reply.id_topic  = @topic.id
    @topic_reply.id_poster = User.first.id

    respond_to do |format|
      if @topic.save && @topic_reply.save
        format.html { redirect_to(topic_path("#{@board.name.parameterize}-#{@board.id}", "#{@topic.title.parameterize}-#{@topic.id}")) }    
      else
        format.html { render :action => "new" }
      end
    end
  end

does anyone have an idea what I'm doing wrong if I posted too less information let me know I'll add what you need.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Your foreign keys should be named topic_id, poster_id and board_id as these are default values in Rails. You're not defining non-default columns in your models, so the current code can't work.