newbie call one controller method inside of another's render

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hi, I have a method called by GET myapp/products

when products is called it returns data to render

in a particular point inside of that render I would like to call a method that I generally call by GET myapp/news allow that method to render and put it into my combined output. in other words something that might be better suited to an Ajax request or an Iframe but currently I would like it to execute in one single request.

To retrieve the rendered data from my second method would I have to do it as a HTTP GET? or is there some other Rails way.

If there is some other Rails way how should I structure it so I can pass in a parameter to the method that is normally passed via the querystring?

Thanks, Bryan Rasmussen

2

Read up on view helpers and partials for ideas on how to do this. Extract the common code out to a helper and call it from both actions.

Colin

3

If I understand correctly, there are 2 views that share some common part (that you want to show in a product view and a news view).

You could place the common part in a partial e.g.

app/views/news/_latest_news.html.haml <= note the underscore at the start of the file name

and include that partial from the view for products and news.

If there are data required, pass them to the partial via locals.

Like this in http://guides.rubyonrails.org/layouts_and_rendering.html

3.4.4 Passing Local Variables

You can also pass local variables into partials, making them even more powerful and flexible. For example, you can use this technique to reduce duplication between new and edit pages, while still keeping a bit of distinct content:

  • new.html.erb <``h1``>New zone</``h1``>

<%= error_messages_for ``:zone %>

<%= render ``:partial => ``"form"``, ``:locals => { ``:zone => ``@zone } ``%>

For you that could be something like (untested !)

product.html.haml

= render “news/latest_news” # note NO underscore here and NO .html.haml

HTH,

Peter