ruby on rails - Rails4 - How to create and the best practices way to create list box for countries? -

i have user model name , email.
want add country listbox during user signup.
right can list users. want add country column model because want create view later users can search other users based on country.

i not using devise gem.

i know steps don't know correct way. should store countries in database ?

first add column

rails generate migration add_country_to_users country:<what_type_?> 

then migrate

bundle exec rake db:migrate 

then add validations in model

app/models/user.rb validates :country, inclusion: %w(full_list?) 

add list box in registration form

app/views/users/new.html.erb <%= f.label :country %> <%= f.f.select :country %> 

add list box in update form

app/views/users/edit.html.erb <%= f.label :country %> <%= f.f.select :country %> 

add in strong params

app/controllers/users_controller.rb def user_params params.require(:user).permit(:name, :email, :password, :password_confirmation, :country) end 

kindly help. thanks

i think best way store in .yml file, , store country code in database specific user.

for example:

countries:   us: united states   ger: germany 

and can load file in intializer,

config = hashwithindifferentaccess.new(yaml.load(file.read(path_to_file)))` 

update

or use gem https://github.com/stefanpenner/country_select