Accessing the router from a helper

Rails
1

I find manually accessing the router to be quite ugly below. Is there
a more direct way to access it?

module ApplicationHelper

def menu_item text, url = nil
routes = ActionController::Routing::Routes

url = if url
        if url.is_a? String
          url
        else
          routes.generate url
        end
      else
        routes.generate :controller => text
      end

unless text.is_a? String
  text = t text
end

active = request.request_uri == url

"<li #{'class="active"' if active}>#{ link_to text, url }</li>"

end

end

Thomas

2

On 21 April 2010 20:36, Thomas A. [email protected] wrote:

active = request.request_uri == url

Would using url_for() not save you a lot of hassle generating that url?

3

On Apr 21, 4:37 pm, Michael P. [email protected] wrote:

On 21 April 2010 20:36, Thomas A. [email protected] wrote:

active = request.request_uri == url

Would using url_for() not save you a lot of hassle generating that url?

Thanks Michael, url_for was what I was looking for in place of
manually grabbing the router. But why do you think that would change
the line you quoted?

Here is the updated method:

def menu_item text, url = {}
unless url[:access] and active_user.cannot? url[:access]

routes = ActionController::Routing::Routes

unless url.is_a? String
  if url[:controller]
    url = url_for url
  else
    url = url_for :controller => text
  end
end

unless text.is_a? String
  text = t text
end

active = request.request_uri == url

"<li#{' class="active"' if active}>#{ link_to text, url }</li>"

end
end

Thomas

4

On 21 April 2010 22:00, Thomas A. [email protected] wrote:

On Apr 21, 4:37 pm, Michael P. [email protected] wrote:

On 21 April 2010 20:36, Thomas A. [email protected] wrote:

active = request.request_uri == url

Would using url_for() not save you a lot of hassle generating that url?

But why do you think that would change the line you quoted?

It wouldn’t necessarily; I was just referring to its use of the “url”
variable.

5

Ah, that makes sense now. For the sake of correctness, the final code
(with a yield and without the unused routes variable):

def menu_item text, url = {}
unless url[:access] and active_user.cannot? url[:access]

unless url.is_a? String
  if url[:controller]
    url = url_for url
  else
    url = url_for :controller => text
  end
end

unless text.is_a? String
  text = t text
end

active = request.request_uri == url

content = link_to text, url
if block_given?
  content << yield
end

"<li#{' class="active"' if active}>#{content}</li>"

end
end

Thomas