Provide Enum class method to easily generate options for Rails select fields

[charlesluzar]

Current state, in order to build a Rails select field you have to do something like this:

@f.select :federal_filing_status,
  W4::FederalFilingStatus.members.map { |status| [ status.name.split("::").last, status.value ] },
...

It'd be preferable to be able to do this...

@f.select :federal_filing_status,
  W4::FederalFilingStatus.options_for_select,
...

In order to do this, changing the behavior of to_s on a member is key. Changing to_sym is a "while you're in there." name returns the fully qualified class name as a string, and this keeps with patterns used in classes and modules. We don't want to change that, but we need a method that will return the class name as a string. to_s is perfect for that.

Color::Red.to_sym -> :Red
Color::Red.to_s -> "Red"
Color::Red.name -> "Color::Red"

We can then provide a prop human_name as a sort of override for Rails select field options...

class Status < Literal::Enum(Integer)
  prop :human_name, String

  MarriedFilingJointly = new(1, human_name: "Married filing jointly")
end

This would allow for the following on Enums:

def self.options_for_select
  map { |member| [member.human_name || member.to_s, member.value] }
end

Without a human_name, the default option is "MarriedFilingJointly."

Steps:

• Change behavior of to_s on a member, eg: Art::Colors::Red.to_s => "Red"
• Change behavior of to_sym on a member, eg: Art::Colors::Red.to_sym => :Red

[joeldrapper]

I don’t think options_for_select should be defined in Literal. At least not yet. to_s and to_sym make sense, and then we could document how to define options_for_select yourself. It’s too Rails-specific for general inclusion I think.

In Phlex for example, I would just use this and skip the Rails helper.

FederalFilingStatus.each do |status|
  option(name: status.value) { status.human_name }
end

[charlesluzar]

I don’t think options_for_select should be defined in Literal. At least not yet. to_s and to_sym make sense, and then we could document how to define options_for_select yourself. It’s too Rails-specific for general inclusion I think.

In Phlex for example, I would just use this and skip the Rails helper.

FederalFilingStatus.each do |status|
option(name: status.value) { status.human_name }
end

Got it, will take this approach.