storing a static array

rubyonrails-talk
1

Well, if it's not going to change, you make it a constant. Constants in ruby are in uppercase. MY_ARRAY = ['why should', 'I have to copy this', 'every time i want to use > it'] Normally this should be enough, but if you want to go extra safe you can freeze it, since an array is an object (http://www.ruby-doc.org/ core/classes/Object.html#M000354).

where to put it in Rails: one option is to declare it in a file in the lib directory. Rails loads what is in lib. To make sure it will never conflict with any other, you could put it into a module, and call it as ModuleName::MY_ARRAY

Elise

Richard Schneeman wrote:

2

You can also look at using an external configuration file instead of constants: http://www.stephenbartholomew.co.uk/2008/8/22/simple-application-wide-configuration-in-rails. Check out the comments for further ideas.

Steve

3

you're right, that is cleaner.

4

unless you really want an array, for some reason