Main menu generated from database

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hello,

I'd like to have the main menu of my web application dynamically generated from categories stored in a database.

I created a partial for this menu: (views/category/_list.html.erb)

<ul> <% @categories.each do |category| %>   <li><%= category.name %></li> <% end %> </ul>

And I call this partial in the main layout: (layouts/application.html.erb):

<%= render 'category/list' %>

Unfortunately, the @categories variable is Nil because the category/list controller is not called with this method.

How can I simply achieve this ? Thank you,

Fabrice

2

In your application_controller put a before_filter that sets up @categories. This will then be setup for all controllers and actions. You might want to use a different name such as @categories_for_menu or something so that it does not clash with other uses of the variable @categories.

Colin

3

I'd also recommend you cache the results so every page is not making a DB call every time.

Brian

4

Thank you for your answer and your advice, that's what I was looking for,

Sincerely,

Fabrice