Rails View Helper Not Inserting HTML into Page - ruby-on-rails

I'm having an issue using a custom helper method in my Rails (3.0) app to output the required html.
I have the following call in my partial view:
_label.html.erb
<% display_resource "Diamond", #resource.diamond %>
And in the resource_helper.rb file:
module ResourceHelper
def display_resource(display_name, value)
"<tr><td>#{display_name} </td><td>#{value.to_s}%</td></tr>" if value > 0
end
end
The intended output is:
<tr>
<td>Diamond</td>
<td>15%</td>
<tr>
*granted, without the formatting, and the 15 is arbitrary
If I use the <%= ... %> when performing the method call, it'll output the string correctly, but it won't be html (ie I'll see "<tr><td>Diamond </td><td>15%</td></tr>" as opposed to "Diamond 15%")
What am I doing incorrectly?

You need to mark the string returned as "raw" and then use <%= %>
module ResourceHelper
def display_resource(display_name, value)
raw("<tr><td>#{display_name} </td><td>#{value.to_s}%</td></tr>") if value > 0 # string wrapped in raw
end
end

Related

How to provide defaults value for partial parameters in Rails?

I need to render a shared partial which can receive a few parameters from several views, but I don't want to pass all parameters everytime. If I call the template without all parameters, I get an error.
Is there a way to define default values for parameters, only if they haven't been defined when calling render 'name_of_partial?
This should do the trick:
<% my_param ||= 'default value' %>
A partial that contains this can be rendered with or without providing my_param.
After reading the docs, and some head scratching, I was able to define default values for parameters not passed to the template.
# in views/shared/template.html.erb
<% my_param = 'default_value' unless binding.local_variable_defined?(:my_param) %>
# Now you can call the partial with or without setting `my_param`
# Now you can call the partial without parameters...
<%= render 'shared/my_template' %>
# ...or with parameters
<%= render 'shared/my_template', my_param: 'non-default value' %>
Tested with Ruby 2.3.1 and upwards.

Rails: Having a button in a view call a method in a controller, route not working

Hi I'm making a rails app that uses Zendesk API calls. I have a controller that uses two classes I defined
class TicketsController < ApplicationController
require 'ticket_fields'
require 'ticket_search'
def getTickets
#search_fields = SearchFields.new(client)
#tickets = TicketSearch.new(client)
end
def search_tickets
#ddcustomvalues = [params[:customer_company_id], params[:study_id], params[:type_id], params[:system_id]]
#tickets.search_tickets(ddcustomvalues)
end
end
One class SearchFields uses the api to load values I want to filter tickets by into arrays. My view then uses these values to populate drop down lists.
The other class TicketSearch looks like this.
class TicketSearch
attr_reader :tickets, :text
def initialize(client)
#text = "query"
#tickets = Array.new
client.tickets.all do |resource|
#tickets << resource
end
end
def search_tickets(custom_search_fields)
querystring = "type:ticket+tags:"
custom_search_fields.each_with_index do |field, index|
unless field == ""
if index ==0
querystring += "#{field}"
else
querystring += " #{field}"
end
end
end
#text = querystring
end
end
What I want to happen in my view is when a button is pressed it changes the value of #text to the querystring generated by the drop down list options that were selected. I'm currently doing this for testing to see if my querystring is correct and the button works. What I eventually want it to do is send the querystring to the ZenDesk Server and returns the tickets I filtered for. the #tickets array would then be replaced with the filtered tickets the server returned. Currently my button code looks like this.
<%= button_to 'Search', :action => 'search_tickets' %>
with all the route code I've tried I either get an error upon starting the page. Or when I press the button nothing happens and the #text being displayed in my view remains "query". Can someone help explain what I need to do I don't quite understand how routes work.
==================================================================================
Hey so I made the changes you suggested and did some reading up on AJAX and js and I think I'm almost at the answer my view now looks like this
<div id="test" >
<%= render partial: 'text', locals: { text: #tickets.text} %>
<div id="test" >
and I created a partial _text file that looks like this
<p> Query: <%=text%> </p>
and a js file search_tickets.js.erb
$("#test").html("<%= escape_javascript(render partial: 'text', locals: { text: #tickets.text } ) %>");
any idea what may be going wrong everything loads up okay but the text remains the same in the partial i set up when i hit the button still
the console outputs this after the button is hit
ActionController::RoutingError (No route matches [POST] "/tickets/search_tickets"):
so I guess it may actually be a routing error my route looks like this
resources :tickets do
collection do
put :search_tickets
end
end
and the form tag calling the path looks like this
<%= form_tag search_tickets_tickets_path, remote: :true do %>
<table>
<tr>
<td align = "left" valign="middle"> <font size = 4> Customer Company </font> </td>
<td align = "left" valign="middle">
<%= select_tag "customer_company_id", options_for_select(#search_fields.customer_companies), :prompt => "Select One" %>
</td>
</tr>
......
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td align = "left" valign="middle">
<%= submit_tag "Search" %>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<% end %>
==================================================================================
(Update)
I think I fixed my last problem by changing my form tag to this
<%= form_tag search_tickets_tickets_path(#tickets), method: :put, remote: :true do%>
however now I get this error from the terminal after I hit the button
NoMethodError (undefined method search_ticket' for nil:NilClass):
app/controllers/tickets_controller.rb:15:insearch_tickets'
how would I pass #tickets as a parameter through my route because clearly its not accessible by search_tickets right now as its giving a nil class error.
Variables
when a button is pressed it changes the value of #text to the querystring generated
It looks to me like you're confused with the stateless nature of Rails - in that, just because a view has been rendered doesn't mean the values / variables are still available for use.
It was mentioned in the comments that it seems you're basing a lot on experience with other frameworks / programming patterns. The best way to describe your solution is that Rails has to "refresh" all your variables / values each time it processes a request; consequently meaning that if you send a button request - you'll have to perform the request as if it were the first one
Ajax
The bottom line is that you need to use an ajax request to pull this off.
To do this, you'll be be best creating a form (not just a button_to), as this will give you the ability to send as many params as you want. You should use form_tag:
#config/routes.rb
resources :tickets do
collection do
get :search_tickets
end
end
#view
<%= form_tag tickets_search_tickets_path, remote: :true do %>
... #-> fields for your params
<%= submit_tag "Search" %>
<% end %>
This will give you the ability to define the following in your controller:
#app/controllers/tickets_controller.rb
Class TicketsController < ApplicationController
def search_tickets
#ddcustomvalues = [params[:customer_company_id], params[:study_id], params[:type_id], params[:system_id]]
#tickets.search_tickets(ddcustomvalues)
respond_to do |format|
format.js #-> loads /views/tickets/search_tickets.js.erb
format.html
end
end
end
#app/views/tickets/tickets_search.js.erb
//JS here to manipulate your original page
Requests
The bottom line here is that if you want to "manipulate" your view without refreshing, unlike "native" application frameworks, where you can rely on a persistent state, with Rails, you basically have to construct the request from scratch (IE passing all the params required for the method to run)

Rails write variable in view without using <%= %>

Let's say I've got the variable #var. Usually I would use <%= #var %> to write it into the view. Now I want to call a module method from within my view which internally decides to write the content of #var or not.
Inside the module I can't use <%= %>. How can I print the content of #var from within the module? The method would be called like this: <% my_method %>. Thanks
Update
Thanks for the answers so far. Maybe I should say more about my initial problem to be more clear. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.
At first I used the <%= %> tag like this:
def print_if_present(var)
var ? var : ""
end
<%= print_if_present var %>
But then, when the var was nil, I got "" as output, which took space in the view. How can I prevent this behavior?
I assume that your module is actualy the view helper. If is that so, simply return var.
def my_method
if my_condition
#var
else # else clause is optional
#other_var
end
end
Note that the else clause is optional. If you want to write something or nothing, you can simply use the if. This is so because if the if is not executed and there is no else, it will return nil, that will be casted to an empty string in your template. Just to ilustrate,
if true
1
end
=> 1 #return if last value
if false
1
end
=> nil # return nil because there is no else block
Since you still want to print the return of your method on your template, you need to keep the equal sign:
<%= my_method %>
The best way to do this is to have your method return the string and use <%= ... %> as in fotanus’ answer, but in Rails if you really need to write output directly from a helper you could use the concat method:
The preferred method of outputting text in your views is to use the <%= “text” %> eRuby syntax. The regular puts and print methods do not operate as expected in an eRuby code block. If you absolutely must output text within a non-output code block (i.e., <% %>), you can use the concat method.
So you can define a helper like this:
def my_method
if some_condition
concat "Something or other"
else
concat "Something else"
end
end
And then use it in a non-output block:
<% my_method %>

Render ERB as HTML and ERB from a Rails View

I'm making a style guide where I output the code on the right that is displayed on the left.
I know that adding %% escapes ERB
I have written a helper that takes the contents of a block and renders the code in two places one showing the html and I want the other to show the source ERB that created the html.
The problem is I get back HTML where I wanted ERB.
The View Code
<%= display_code do %>
<%= link_to "Button", "/style_guide, class: "btn" %>
<% end %>
The Helper Code
module StyleGuideHelper
def display_code(&block)
content = with_output_buffer(&block)
html = ""
html << content_tag(:div, content, class: "rendered-code")
html << content_tag(:div, escape_erb(content), class: "source-code-preview")
html.html_safe
end
def escape_erb(code)
code = code.gsub("%=", "%%=")
end
end
Expected Result
Button <%= link_to "Button", "/style_guide, class: "btn" %>
Actual Result
Button Button
Cheers
The issue is that this helper runs the block (link_to "Button", ...) -- it never sees the source code inside the block, just its output. You could replace escape_erb with h to capture the resulting HTML, but that won't pop back up to the ERB that generated it.
As I see it, your options are:
Break out examples into partials, then make a helper that a) renders the partial and b) displays the underlying file.
Specify your ERB fragments as strings (heredocs?), pass the string into the helper, and have the helper a) evaluate it via ERB.new(string).result(binding) to render the result and b) display the string.
Make the helper determine what part of the view invoked it, then parse the .erb well enough to find the block. Catch is, the precise format of what you see in callers is subject to change without notice due to the way views are compiled.
Make a helper that uses crazy metaprogramming juju to evaluate the block in both an ERB context as well as your own special context that intercepts the code being evaluated and turns it back into markup.
...sorted in approximate order of complexity and odds of success.
This code below will allow you to retrieve the code for a given block.
class ERBSource
ERB = ::ActionView::Template::Handlers::ERB
def self.for(block)
new(block).source
end
attr_reader :block, :file, :line_number
def initialize(block)
#block = block
#file, #line_number = *block.source_location
end
def source
lines = File.readlines(file)
relevant_lines = lines[(line_number - 1)..-1] || []
extract_first_expression(relevant_lines)
end
private
def extract_first_expression(lines)
code = lines.slice[0,1].join # add the first two lines so it has to iterate less
lines.each do |line|
code << line
return code if correct_syntax?(compile_erb(code))
end
raise SyntaxError, "unexpected $end"
end
def correct_syntax?(code)
stderr = $stderr
$stderr.reopen(IO::NULL)
RubyVM::InstructionSequence.compile(code)
$stderr.reopen(stderr)
true
rescue Exception
$stderr.reopen(stderr)
false
end
def compile_erb(code)
ERB.erb_implementation.new(
code,
:escape => false,
:trim => (ERB.erb_trim_mode == "-")
).src
end
end
This is what the helper looks like
module StyleGuideHelper
def render_example(name, &block)
code = ERBSource.for(block)
content_tag(:h2, name) +
content_tag(:div, &block) +
content_tag(:pre, content_tag(:code, code))
end
end

each_element not behaving as expected

When I'm in irb and I do something like this:
node_list.each_element { |e| puts e.text }
It works and prints one line of text per element returned (plus I think it returns the xml object). However, when I head over to rails and have things moving between controllers, helpers, views and layouts it just dumps the xml object.
I should mention that for good reasons I'm using rails 1.2.3 and ruby 1.8.7.
Gratzi!
So the issue your having is that puts writes to console and not the template. Also, in ruby the a method will return by default its last object. So your method as written will loop through #child1, print each's text to the console, and then return the #child1 object at which point your erb tags of <%= %> tells it print the object (#child1 in this case)
You have two options, either you can move it out into the template:
<% tol_get_names(#child1) do |e| %> #note just <% and not <%=
<%= e.text %>
<% end %>
Or build your method so that it loops through building a string and then returns that string instead of the original object:
def tol_get_names(child)
texts = [] #empty array for all our values
child.each_element { |e|
texts << e.text #add the text string to our array
end
texts.join(", ") #build a string and seperate it with a comma
end
Several ways you could write this type of method, but this is my usual way.

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