Get Current Child Index On Fields_for In Rails 3.2

It is extremely hard to get the index value of the object in a fields_for or simple_fields_for in Rails 3.2 (Rails 4 has this feature).

You can add this monkey patch to get access to those index values.

One gotcha is that it will only have an index value if the object was not dynamically added (like with cocoon or nested forms)


# config/initializers/fields_for_monkey_patch.rb
module ActionView
  module Helpers
    class FormBuilder

      def index
        @options[:index] || @options[:child_index]
      end

      def fields_for(record_name, record_object = nil, fields_options = {}, &block)
        fields_options, record_object = record_object, nil if record_object.is_a?(Hash) && record_object.extractable_options?
        fields_options[:builder] ||= options[:builder]
        fields_options[:parent_builder] = self
        fields_options[:namespace] = options[:namespace]

        case record_name
          when String, Symbol
            if nested_attributes_association?(record_name)
              return fields_for_with_nested_attributes(record_name, record_object, fields_options, block)
            end
          else
            record_object = record_name.is_a?(Array) ? record_name.last : record_name
            record_name   = ActiveModel::Naming.param_key(record_object)
        end

        index = if options.has_key?(:index)
                  options[:index]
                elsif defined?(@auto_index)
                  self.object_name = @object_name.to_s.sub(/\[\]$/,"")
                  @auto_index
                end

        record_name = index ? "#{object_name}[#{index}][#{record_name}]" : "#{object_name}[#{record_name}]"
        fields_options[:child_index] = index

        @template.fields_for(record_name, record_object, fields_options, &block)
      end

      def fields_for_with_nested_attributes(association_name, association, options, block)
        name = "#{object_name}[#{association_name}_attributes]"
        association = convert_to_model(association)

        if association.respond_to?(:persisted?)
          association = [association] if @object.send(association_name).is_a?(Array)
        elsif !association.respond_to?(:to_ary)
          association = @object.send(association_name)
        end

        if association.respond_to?(:to_ary)
          explicit_child_index = options[:child_index]
          output = ActiveSupport::SafeBuffer.new
          association.each do |child|
            options[:child_index] = nested_child_index(name) unless explicit_child_index
            output << fields_for_nested_model("#{name}[#{options[:child_index]}]", child, options, block)
          end
          output
        elsif association
          fields_for_nested_model(name, association, options, block)
        end
      end

    end
  end
end

Now you can access the index value in your partial like so:


<% f.fields_for :documents do |x| %>
  <%= x.index %>
<% end %>