Better approach to set global values?

Rails
1

Hi everyone,

I would like to set some site-wide (global) values across my application
layout.
All these global values are stored in my Settings table.

So in my Application controller I have something like this:

#Application Controller:

before_filter :grab_settings

def grab_settings
@set = Setting.first
end

#Application Layout view

<%= @set.company_name %>

All of this works fine, though. But if the “company_name” field is
empty, than you wouldn’t see anything.
So in that case I would like to default to a other value.

I fixed that by doing the following:



<% if @set.company_name.empty? %>

My company


<% else %>

<%= @set.company_name %>


<% end %>

However isn’t there a better way to do this? Initially I thought I could
do something more elegant like this:

<%= @set.company_name || “My company” %> but ofcourse, that won’t work.

So basically I’m looking for a more polished/clean/better approach.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

2

John N. wrote in post #963524:

def grab_settings
@set = Setting.first

 @set.company_name ||= 'My Company'

end

Well, you could always read the Settings, then impose your own defaults
inside the grab_settings method. Any code outside that method has no
idea whether the value was read, or set by you. It just knows that the
value is filled.

3

However isn’t there a better way to do this? Initially I thought I could
do something more elegant like this:

How about moving the config out of the code by using the plugin.

You can put your defaults in a file default.yml and then “over-ride”
with them with a separate production.yml etc etc.

4

However isn’t there a better way to do this? Initially I thought I could
do something more elegant like this:

How about moving the config out of the code by using the
plugin.GitHub - cjbottaro/app_config: Rails plugin that provides environment specific application configuration.

You can put your defaults in a file default.yml and then “over-ride”
with them with a separate production.yml etc etc.

If you wanted different vals per environment (ie test, development,
production), then you could define APP_VALS in each of those
environment config files.

Or save some time and use SettingsLogic…

5

Another alternative is to just use the existing rails environment
config or initializers file(s) to store such info in memory, something
like:

$ cat ./config/environment.rb
…
APP_VALS = {
:default_company_name = ‘My Company’,
}
…

$ ./script/console
…

APP_VALS[:default_company_name]
=> “My Company”

If you wanted different vals per environment (ie test, development,
production), then you could define APP_VALS in each of those
environment config files.

Jeff