Nested model not available in Devise views - ruby-on-rails-3

Question

I'm having a problem with associations not being available in my views.
My models are:
:user has_many :subscriptions
:subscription belongs_to :user
I'm using Devise to manage authentication etc. for Users
What I'd like to do: when creating a new user in the registration process, I also want to also create a subscription for that user.
Since Devise::RegistrationsController#new by default does not initialize an associated subscription, I've created my own RegistrationsController:
class RegistrationsController < Devise::RegistrationsController
def new
super
resource.subscriptions.build
logger.debug resource.subscriptions.inspect
end
end
The debug statement there confirms that a Subscription object is successfully created:
[#<Subscription id: nil, user_id: nil, chargify_subscription_id: nil, chargify_product_handle: nil, created_at: nil, updated_at: nil>]
The problem: in the view, resource.subscriptions does not exist.
If I inspect resource in the view, I get a User object that includes all of its own attributes but no associations (it should have an associated subscriptions)
debug(resource) gives the following:
--- !ruby/object:User
attributes:
name:
encrypted_password: ""
created_at:
updated_at:
last_sign_in_ip:
last_sign_in_at:
sign_in_count: 0 last_name:
current_sign_in_ip:
reset_password_token:
current_sign_in_at:
remember_created_at:
reset_password_sent_at:
chargify_customer_reference:
first_name:
email: ""
attributes_cache: {}
changed_attributes: {}
destroyed: false
marked_for_destruction: false
new_record: true
previously_changed: {}
readonly: false
Is there something I'm missing, or perhaps is there something strange about the resource mechanism used by Devise that prevents associations from being available in the view?
Thanks!
Edit:
If I just add resource.subscriptions.build in my view before rending the form, that works fine. But I think that kind of logic belongs in the controller and not the view, and I'd like to know what's keeping me from being able to put it there.

Answer 1

This answer is really late, but I found that if I override the entire controller action "new" (instead of delegating some of it to the parent with "super"), then I can build the resource properly. The reason is because "super" renders the view before handing control back to your custom controller method. Long story short...
class RegistrationsController < Devise::RegistrationsController
def new
resource = build_resource({}) # as found in Devise::RegistrationsController
resource.subscriptions.build
respond_with_navigational(resource){ render_with_scope :new } # also from Devise
end
end
Should work nicely...at least it did for me. Your code got me started on the right track anyway.