text_field(object_name, method, options = {}) public

Returns an input tag of the "text" type tailored for accessing a specified attribute (identified by method) on an object assigned to the template (identified by object). Additional options on the input tag can be passed as a hash with options.

Examples (call, result): 

  text_field("post", "title", "size" => 20)
    <input type="text" id="post_title" name="post[title]" size="20" value="#{@post.title}" />
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December 16, 2008 - (v1.0.0 - v2.2.1)
14 thanks

Force initial value

If you want to force an initial value for your text_field which is normally based on your object attribute value, you can use :

text_field :ecard, :sender, :value => 'contact@host.com'
October 21, 2013 - (v2.3.8)
1 thank

Found out you can't set the type to number

I am sure others have tried to do this but I thought I would add a not that tells ever one. You can’t use the type field in in rails 2.3. It is always set back to type => “text”

So if you are trying to set it to type => “number” it will not work. It always goes back to text. Sorry only way around this is to use a text_field_tag and set the type in that.

<%= text_field_tag :thing, type: "number" %>

Code above is the only way to set the type. in rails 3 you can just call number_field and it will work

January 6, 2009
0 thanks

Alternative force initial value

@Bounga - Thanks for the suggestion. Didn’t know about that method. An alternative method I have used is just to assign the default value to the object in your controller. For example your “new” action might now look like:

def new
  @ecard = Ecard.new params[:ecard]
  @ecard.sender ||= 'contact@host.com'
end
April 14, 2009
0 thanks

Re: Force initial value

An alternative to @eric_programmer’s would be to extract it entirely from the controller logic…

class Person
  def sender
    self[:sender] || 'contact@host.com'
  end
end

There are a ton of ways to do it, but making this a business logic decision will let you get the same logic from any possible implementation angle. Scripts, web service, etc.

November 18, 2013
0 thanks

BEWARE of options[:value] in a partial

No problem with new records however,

the following line will not display the current @ecard value on EDIT but ‘contact@host.com’.

text_field :ecard, :sender, :value => 'contact@host.com'

Don’t let your views take control, but if you insist:

text_field :ecard, :sender, :value => f.object.ecard.blank? ? 'contact@host.com' : f.object.ecard

This doesn’t make sense, since when this object was created they deleted the default, which made it blank. Why would they want it back?