RailsTutorial.org book design question - ruby-on-rails

Question

Hi I worked through Michael Hartl's RAILSTUTORIAL book and I have a question about how he builds the user's show page.
The page is supposed to list all the posts a user has made.
UsersController
def show
#user = User.find(params[:id])
#posts = #user.posts.paginate(:per_page => "10",:page => params[:page])
#title = #user.name
end
users/show.html.erb
<table class="profile" summary="Profile information">
<tr>
<td class="main">
<h1><%= #user.name %></h1>
<%= render 'follow_form' if user_signed_in? %>
<% unless #user.posts.empty? %>
<table class="posts" summary="User posts">
<%= render #posts %> # this goes to posts/_post and sends the object as post
# that makes the _post view use a local variable correct?
</table> # is there a way to do with with an #post variable?
<%= will_paginate #posts %>
<% end %>
</td>
<td class="sidebar round">
<%= link_to avatar_for(#user), #user.avatar.url %><br />
<strong>Name</strong> <%= #user.name %><br />
<strong>URL</strong> <%= link_to user_path(#user), user_path(#user) %>
<strong>Posts</strong> <%= #user.posts.count %>
<%= render 'shared/stats' %>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
posts/_post.html.erb
<tr>
<td class="post">
<span class="title"><strong><%= link_to post.title, post %></strong></span><br />
<span class="timestamp">
Posted <%= time_ago_in_words(post.created_at) %> ago. </span>
Likers<span id="likers"><br />
</span>
</td>
<% if current_user?(post.user)%>
<td>
<%= link_to "delete", post, :method => :delete,
:confirm => "You sure?",
:title => post.content %>
</td>
<%end%>
</tr>
I need to render a partial in the users view that uses the post object, but it asks for it as #post and since no #post has been defined in the show action of the user's controller I get a nil error.
It seem odd to me to go from the user's controller to the posts view and use a local variable, which if I understand local variables correctly can't be used outsider that view. Is there a way to assign the value of post in that view to #post in the users view?
Thanks for the help

Answer 1

You need to use a local variable in the partial, and assign it in the locals hash. This line is a shortcut for iterating through the array and rendering the partial. I'm not sure if this works anymore in Rails 3:
<%= render #posts %>
The way I would do it:
<% #posts.each do |post| %>
<%= render 'posts/post', :post => post %>
<% end %>
The slightly older way of rendering partials:
<% #posts.each do |post| %>
<%= render :partial => 'posts/post', :locals => {:post => post} %>
<% end %>