Accessing error messages in a custom FormBuilder

Hi there,

I’m trying to create a FormBuilder called LabellingBuilder, to
implement Simply Accessible’s form error messages strategy:

http://simplyaccessible.org/article/form-error-messages

The problem is that
ActionView::Helpers::ActiveRecordHelper#error_messages_on isn’t
available in subclasses of ActionView::Helpers::FormBuilder.

So I tried to write my own little error fetcher and was stunned by the
results – while @object_name is correctly set, @object is nil, as
indicated by the XXX comment in the code below.

Can anyone help me with this code?

#—

Based on:

TaggedBuilder from “Agile Web D. with Rails, 2nd Ed.”

We make no guarantees that this code is fit for any purpose.

Visit http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/rails2 for more

book information.

class LabellingBuilder < ActionView::Helpers::FormBuilder

def first_error_message_on(label)
“”
# XXX @object is always nil
#errors = @object.errors.on(label)
#errors.respond_to? :first ? errors.first : errors
end

Description

is too short


<%= form.text_area ‘description’ %>

def self.create_tagged_field(method_name)
define_method(method_name) do |label, *args|
@template.content_tag(“div”,
@template.content_tag(“label”,
label.to_s.humanize +
@template.content_tag(“em”,
first_error_message_on(label)),
:for => “#{@object_name}_#{label}”) +

” +
super,
:class => “labelled-form-input”)
end
end

field_helpers.each do |name|
create_tagged_field(name)
end

end
#—

Thanks in advance,
Sheldon.