Rails: How do I make select send an object instead of a string?

Question

I have a drop down menu of users, when I select one and submit my form the controller receives the user object as a string rather than the object itself. How do I make a menu whereby the user object itself is submitted?

<%= form.select :recipient, @users %>

Answer 1

You want to use collection_select instead of select .

Select is for rendering information from a drop down menu it is not meant for dynamic database information. Collection_select on the other hand is meant to pull things from a database, it allows you more options such as collection_select :label, :collection, :server information, :display information

Do this instead:

<%= form.collection_select :recipient, @users, :id, :email %>