Using helpers inside a controller

Namor () — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:16:53 GMT

Ripped from
http://gabriel.gironda.org/articles/2006/02/08/using-helpers-inside-a-controller

This is incredibly straightforward and more of an occasional convenience, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway. You may find that sometimes, even though the controller obviously isn't the view, that you want to use some of the helper methods available.

The only case I've come across so far is wanting to use pluralize() in a flash message and not have to do it by hand using the inflector. You could include ActionView::Helpers::TextHelper in the controller, but that fills your namespace with crap.

Put this in the class ApplicationController instead:



  def help

    Helper.instance

  end



  class Helper

    include Singleton

    include ActionView::Helpers::TextHelper

  end

Then you can just use it like so:



  def check_for_max_donkeys

    if Donkey.find_fit_donkeys.size == APP_SETTINGS['max_fit_donkeys']

      flash_error "The maximum of #{help.pluralize(APP_SETTINGS['max_fit_donkeys'], 'donkey')} has been reached."

      redirect_to_index

    end

  end

Update: Don't use the method name "helper" because Rails already uses that. Just "help" works fine.

Validations for Non-ActiveRecord Objects

Namor () — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 02:01:56 GMT

I needed to find a way to use active record validations on non active record items so i went searching and found this blog which is useful for me..
Totally ripped off Peter Donald's blog :P
http://www.realityforge.org/articles/2005/12/02/validations-for-non-activerecord-model-objects

To get this working grab the active_form.rb file and place it in the app/models directory. You can then make your model objects extend ActiveForm and use them like regular ActiveRecord objects.

active_form.rb



# Note ".valid?" method  must occur on object for validates_associated

class ActiveForm

  

  def initialize(attributes = nil)

    if attributes

      attributes.each do |key,value|

        send(key.to_s + '=', value)

      end

    end

    yield self if block_given?

  end



  def [](key)

    instance_variable_get("@#{key}")

  end



  def method_missing( method_id, *args )

    if md = /_before_type_cast$/.match(method_id.to_s)

      attr_name = md.pre_match

      return self[attr_name] if self.respond_to?(attr_name)

    end

    super

  end



protected 

  def raise_not_implemented_error(*params)

    ValidatingModel.raise_not_implemented_error(*params)

  end



  def self.human_attribute_name(attribute_key_name)

    attribute_key_name.humanize

  end



  def new_record?

    true

  end



  # these methods must be defined before include

  alias save raise_not_implemented_error

  alias update_attribute raise_not_implemented_error



public

  include ActiveRecord::Validations



protected 



  # the following methods must be defined after include so that they overide

  # methods previously included

  alias save! raise_not_implemented_error



  class << self

    def raise_not_implemented_error(*params)

      raise NotImplementedError

    end



    alias validates_uniqueness_of raise_not_implemented_error

    alias create! raise_not_implemented_error

    alias validate_on_create raise_not_implemented_error

    alias validate_on_update raise_not_implemented_error

    alias save_with_validation raise_not_implemented_error    

  end

end



require 'dispatcher'

class Dispatcher

  class << self

    if ! method_defined?(:form_original_reset_application!) 

      alias :form_original_reset_application! :reset_application!

      def reset_application!

        form_original_reset_application!

        Dependencies.remove_subclasses_for(ActiveForm) if defined?(ActiveForm)

      end

    end

  end

end

DZone Snippets: custom code

Using helpers inside a controller

Validations for Non-ActiveRecord Objects