ERB: Notes

Some notes…

Resources

1. Tutorial

“Convention over configuration”

1. By default, controllers automatically render views with names that correspond to valid routes, eg:
   1. config/routes.rb: resources :books
   2. app/controllers/books_controller.rb: class BooksController < ApplicationController; end
   3. app/views/books/index.html.erb
2. Rails also wraps the response in a layout: app/views/layouts/application.html.erb
3. For my current project, I want to use views without models (or models that aren't data backed?) to wrap external services/resources (no JSON unfortunately, just HTML, pro'ly).
4. Otherwise, rendering JSON is beautifully simple:

   render :json => @product

More un-Pythonisms

1. Y'know, Python's "zen" decrees:

   There should be one — and preferably only one — obvious way to do it.

   But in Rails all the following are equivalent!

   render :edit
   render :action => :edit
   render 'edit'
   render 'edit.html.erb'
   render :action => 'edit'
   render :action => 'edit.html.erb'
   render 'books/edit'
   render 'books/edit.html.erb'
   render :template => 'books/edit'
   render :template => 'books/edit.html.erb'
   render '/path/to/rails/app/views/books/edit'
   render '/path/to/rails/app/views/books/edit.html.erb'
   render :file => '/path/to/rails/app/views/books/edit'
   render :file => '/path/to/rails/app/views/books/edit.html.erb'

   I'm just saying.

Layouts

1. By default, Rails looks for a layout file in app/views/layouts/ with the same base name as the controller, or else application.html.erb, or a layout specified in the ApplicationController class, etc.
2. Layout declarations cascade following the class hierarchy.

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