permit

Returns a new ActionController::Parameters instance that includes only the given filters and sets the permitted attribute for the object to true. This is useful for limiting which attributes should be allowed for mass updating.

params = ActionController::Parameters.new(user: { name: "Francesco", age: 22, role: "admin" })
permitted = params.require(:user).permit(:name, :age)
permitted.permitted?      # => true
permitted.has_key?(:name) # => true
permitted.has_key?(:age)  # => true
permitted.has_key?(:role) # => false

Only permitted scalars pass the filter. For example, given

params.permit(:name)

:name passes if it is a key of params whose associated value is of type String, Symbol, NilClass, Numeric, TrueClass, FalseClass, Date, Time, DateTime, StringIO, IO, +ActionDispatch::Http::UploadedFile+ or +Rack::Test::UploadedFile+. Otherwise, the key :name is filtered out.

You may declare that the parameter should be an array of permitted scalars by mapping it to an empty array:

params = ActionController::Parameters.new(tags: ["rails", "parameters"])
params.permit(tags: [])

Sometimes it is not possible or convenient to declare the valid keys of a hash parameter or its internal structure. Just map to an empty hash:

params.permit(preferences: {})

Be careful because this opens the door to arbitrary input. In this case, permit ensures values in the returned structure are permitted scalars and filters out anything else.

You can also use permit on nested parameters, like:

params = ActionController::Parameters.new({
  person: {
    name: "Francesco",
    age:  22,
    pets: [{
      name: "Purplish",
      category: "dogs"
    }]
  }
})

permitted = params.permit(person: [ :name, { pets: :name } ])
permitted.permitted?                    # => true
permitted[:person][:name]               # => "Francesco"
permitted[:person][:age]                # => nil
permitted[:person][:pets][0][:name]     # => "Purplish"
permitted[:person][:pets][0][:category] # => nil

Note that if you use permit in a key that points to a hash, it won’t allow all the hash. You also need to specify which attributes inside the hash should be permitted.

params = ActionController::Parameters.new({
  person: {
    contact: {
      email: "none@test.com",
      phone: "555-1234"
    }
  }
})

params.require(:person).permit(:contact)
# => #<ActionController::Parameters {} permitted: true>

params.require(:person).permit(contact: :phone)
# => #<ActionController::Parameters {"contact"=>#<ActionController::Parameters {"phone"=>"555-1234"} permitted: true>} permitted: true>

params.require(:person).permit(contact: [ :email, :phone ])
# => #<ActionController::Parameters {"contact"=>#<ActionController::Parameters {"email"=>"none@test.com", "phone"=>"555-1234"} permitted: true>} permitted: true>

If your parameters specify multiple parameters indexed by a number, you can permit each set of parameters under the numeric key to be the same using the same syntax as permitting a single item.

params = ActionController::Parameters.new({
  person: {
    '0': {
      email: "none@test.com",
      phone: "555-1234"
    },
    '1': {
      email: "nothing@test.com",
      phone: "555-6789"
    },
  }
})
params.permit(person: [:email]).to_h
# => {"person"=>{"0"=>{"email"=>"none@test.com"}, "1"=>{"email"=>"nothing@test.com"}}}

If you want to specify what keys you want from each numeric key, you can instead specify each one individually

params = ActionController::Parameters.new({
  person: {
    '0': {
      email: "none@test.com",
      phone: "555-1234"
    },
    '1': {
      email: "nothing@test.com",
      phone: "555-6789"
    },
  }
})
params.permit(person: { '0': [:email], '1': [:phone]}).to_h
# => {"person"=>{"0"=>{"email"=>"none@test.com"}, "1"=>{"phone"=>"555-6789"}}}