View helper, blocks and capture. Template output is repeated (rails 3)

rubyonrails-talk
#1

I'm having some issues with blocks and capture in erb templates, and
the particular problem shows itself in that the expected output in the
template view is repeated due to something related to how capture
works. (Using Rails 3.x)

I have the following view helper:

module ColumnLayoutHelper

  def layout_columns(options = {}, &content_block)
    raise ArgumentError, "No block given" unless block_given?

    layout = ColumnLayoutBuilder.new
    layout.configure(options)
    content = capture(layout, &content_block)
    content_tag(:div, content, layout.main_wrapping, false)

  end

end

class ColumnLayoutBuilder < Object

  include ActionView::Helpers::TagHelper
  include ActionView::Helpers::CaptureHelper

  attr_accessor :output_buffer, :column_counter
  attr_accessor :main_wrapping
  attr_accessor :column_wrapping

  def configure(options)
    @main_wrapping = options.delete(:main_wrapping)
    @column_wrapping = options.delete(:column_wrapping)
  end

  def column(&block)

    raise ArgumentError, "No block given" unless block_given?

    @column_counter ||= 0
    @column_counter = @column_counter + 1

    column_html_options = (column_wrapping ? column_wrapping.dup : {})

{}

    column_html_options.default = ""
    column_html_options[:class] = "column_#{column_counter} " +
column_html_options[:class]
    column_content = content_tag(:div, capture(self, &block),
column_html_options,false)
    column_content
  end

end

#2

I'm having some issues with blocks and capture in erb templates, and
the particular problem shows itself in that the expected output in the
template view is repeated due to something related to how capture
works. (Using Rails 3.x)

Here's my hunch: capture swaps in a temporary output buffer to capture the output. However because you've got your custom builder object, the call to capture inside your builder object is fiddling with the builder's output buffer attribute, which is neither here nor there because the bits of erb you yield to know nothing of this arrangement an d are writing to the template's output_buffer

If you look at the source for fields_for/Formbuilder you can see that they squirrel away the template object (in your helper method this is just self) for later. You should probably do the same

Fred