I'm using Ruby on Rails and I want to display a drop down list in a view, but only if items in the list exist. What is a good way to check for the presence of at least one instance of a model, and then display in the view based on this condition?
I was thinking of using an if statement such as:
if firstmodel.secondmodels
. . html stuff
But I think the empty array doesn't stop evaluate to false.
You could use something like this in your view:
<% if #items.any? %>
<!-- drop down list here -->
<% else %>
<div>No items :-(</div>
<% end %>
Generally you should try to keep logic out of your view, but I think in this simple case there are not many alternatives (?)
If there are too many if else like that your view, well... you could maybe check for this in your controller and render another view altogether, like:
# render no_content.html.erb if there are no items,
# default template file otherwise
render "no_content" unless #items.any?
# or:
render "no_content" if #items.empty?
Using your example above, you can see if an array is empty by doing empty?.
if firstmodel.secondmodels.empty?
I believe you need something like that:
<% if firstmodel.secondmodels.empty? %>
<p>Stuff</p>
<% else %>
<p>Other Stuff</p>
<% end %>
Of if you are using HAML:
- if firstmodel.secondmodels.empty?
%p Stuff
- else %>
%p Other Stuff
Related
I have an instance variable #tally_property, and if there are photos on that object I would like to cycle through the photos and show them.
So my code snippet looks like this:
<% if #tally_property.photos.present? %>
<% #tally_property.photos.each_with_index do |photo, index| %>
The issue is that based on the above, if #tally_property is nil, then the entire first line throws an error.
So is there a 'nil' check I can do that isn't bulky, i.e. I don't want to do if #tally_property.nil?, on both the primary object and the association, and is elegant and ruby & rails-esque?
I would use the safe navigation operator (&.) and write something like this:
<% #tally_property&.photos&.each_with_index do |photo, index| %>
...
<% end %>
In Ruby 2.3.0+ you can use the safe navigation operator:
#tally_property&.photos
ActiveSupport has a .try method that can be used to the same end in older versions of ruby:
#tally_property.try(:photos)
You can add a simple conditional to be able to safely iterate through the collection:
<% (#tally_property.try(:photos)||[]).each_with_index do |photo, index| %>
<% end %>
Rails 4 adds ActiveRecord::Relation#none and a change in behaviour so that associations always return a ActiveRecord::Relation. So its perfectly acceptable to write:
<% #tally_property.try(:photos).try(:each_with_index) do |photo, index| %>
<% end %>
After upgrading your app. Or you can use a partial and render:
<%= render partial: 'photos', collection: #tally_property.photos if #tally_property %>
Which removes the need for writing the iteration.
Use && (or and, they each have their sweetspot).
Taking it out of Erb for a moment, I would generally write something like this:
if #tally_property and #tally_property.photos.present?
Depending on photos I might use:
if #tally_property and #tally_property.photos
or perhaps:
if #tally_property and not #tally_property.photos.empty?
Sometimes I'll use a temporary variable:
if (photos = #tally_property && #tally_property.photos)
photos.each #…
That kind of thing.
I would recommend this episode of Ruby Tapas, And/Or for a longer (but still quick) look at it.
One more way, just select all photos connected to this tally_property:
example how it might be:
Photo.joins(:tally_property).each_with_index do |photo, index|
I want to implement a search functionality in my Rails app by using the pg_search gem. I've set up everything like it says in the documentation. Then I've set up a search controller with a show action:
def show
#pg_search_documents = PgSearch.multisearch(search_params)
end
The search itself works but I have a really annoying problem in my view. Whatever I do, it always outputs an array of PgSearch::Document objects. Even when I only write this in my view:
<%= #pg_search_documents.each do |document| %>
<% end %>
I get this (I've shortened it):
[#<PgSearch::Document id: 2, content: "…", searchable_id: 28, searchable_type: "Vessel">, #<PgSearch::Document id: 3, content: "…", searchable_id: 27, searchable_type: "Vessel">]
I know that pg_search sets up a polymorphic association which I've never dealt with before — could that be the problem?
Thanks in advance
<%= #pg_search_documents.each do |document| %>
<% end %>
This is a classic error, one I remember being puzzled over when I first started learning Rails. The mistake is using <%= %> with each. The return value of each is the array that you're iterating over (in this case, #pg_search_documents), and by using <%=, you're telling Rails to create a string from that array and insert it into your view. That generally isn't what you want: you want the view to be generated by the code inside the block you're passing to each.
Use <% #pg_search_documents.each do |document| %> instead (omitting the =) and you'll avoid the dump of the array's content.
You may also need to use .searchable as #blelump suggests, but I wanted to answer the other half of your question, as it's a common pitfall.
To get back to the original source model, searchable call is needed on these search result records, e.g:
<% #pg_search_documents.each do |document| %>
<%= document.searchable %>
<% end %>
You can also switch back to the source model within your controller, e.g:
#pg_search_documents = PgSearch.multisearch(search_params).collect(&:searchable)
Then, the #pg_search_documents will contain Vessel elements.
When calling all posts for a user Posts.find(creator: current_user:_id), and the user hasn't made any...rails spits a "NoMethodError" for it...
What I want to do is have a pretty output for the user of "Why, no. You haven't posted anything, you lazy slob." instead of this scary error.
What's the best way to handle things like this?
You need to use where instead of find. By design, find method expect to actually find an existing thing you're looking for. Consult docs about querying here.
Also, you can try and use try method. Basically it's equal to the following:
object.try(:something_scary)
# is equal to
object && object.something_scary
This is how I handle nil entities. If you want to show some kind of message to user (about being slobby) you make a check inside of your template and render different partials. Example:
<% if #posts.present? %>
<%= render 'posts' %>
<% else %>
<%= render 'no_posts' %>
<% end %>
Then you can put your message inside of that no_posts partial.
In rails, I often run into the situation where inside the views I'll do something like
<% if #some_condition_previusly_established_in_a_controller %>
<div class="one">123</div>
<% else %>
<div class="two">something else</div>
<% end %>
It looks a bit cluttery. Is this an acceptable way of working with views or not?
Unless you can think of a way to re-write this as a helper method, you're basically stuck with it looking kind of ugly. That's just how ERB is, as it was intended to be a minimal way of injecting Ruby into an otherwise plain-text template, not as something necessarily streamlined or elegant.
The good news is a syntax-highlighting editor will usually make your <% ... %> ERB blocks look visually different from your HTML so that can dramatically improve readability.
It's also why other representations like HAML have been created where that syntax is a lot less cluttered:
- if some_condition_previusly_established_in_a_controller
.one 123
- else
.two something else
For one or two such conditional logic in your views, I guess its fine but when your code gets bigger and you have multiple if..else..end and looks "cluttery", I think you should look at implementing "Presenter Pattern" which greatly cleans up your views by separating your logic to Presenters.
Here is a great tutorial I followed from Ryan Bates in his Rails Casts series on "Presenter Patterns from scratch". http://railscasts.com/episodes/287-presenters-from-scratch.
Have you tried?
<% #some_condition_previusly_established_in_a_controller ? <div class="one">123</div> : <div class="two">something else</div> %>
If your view contains lots of tags and HTML elements, you can put them into partials and logic into model
View:
<%= render :partial => #model.status %>
<%= render :partial => "file/path/#{#model.status}" %> # if your partial is in some different folder
If your status is one, then it would render the file _one.html.erb
If it is two, then it would render the file _two.html.erb automatically.
Model:
def status
if #some_condition
"one"
else
"two"
end
end
Yes, that is the standard (and yes, it looks cluttery).
If you're looking for a possibly cleaner alternative, check out: Conditional tag wrapping in Rails / ERB
You can always move the logic to the controller and leave the view clean(er).
Controller:
if #some_condition
#div_class = :one
#div_content = 123
else
#div_class = :two
#div_content = 'something else'
end
View:
<div class="<%= #div_class %>"><%= #div_content %></div>
Or using a helper:
<%= content_tag :div, #div_content, class: #div_class %>
I have this code
<% if approved %>
<td>Flow Number</td>
<% end %>
and I'd like to shorten it using statement modifiers. Of course I can use
<%="<td>Flow Number</td>" if approved -%>
but is there a shorter way? I'd also like to get the markup out of quotes.
You could use "content_tag", which isn't actually shorter, but may be more appealing, keeping HTML out of your ruby blocks:
<%= content_tag :td, "Flow Number" if approved %>
Otherwise, you could consider writing a helper - which may be appealing if you need to reuse similar logic throughout the page (or over several pages).
Maybe HAML?
That'd be:
- if approved?
%td Flow Number
Not exactly what you're after I know.
Yeah, I think a helper method using content_tag internally would be the best short way.
Using a helper method, you could also yield to the desired output like this:
# in view helper
def show_if(condition, wrapper_tag)
condition ? content_tag(wrapper_tag, yield) : ''
end
# in view
<%= show_if(approved, :td) {'Flow Number'} %>
or
# in view helper
def show_if(condition)
condition ? yield : ''
end
# in view
<% show_if(approved) do %>
<td>Flow Number</td>
<% end %>
I like this last method for a nice generic way to show or hide whole blocks based on a condition. Hope that helps!