Calling render_to_string outside of controller

Rails
1

How can I call render_to_string outside of a controller. I’m stuck on
this. I’ve nearly got my plugin finished but I can’t seem to get this
to work. The method is in ActionController::Base but it is protected.

2

charlie bowman wrote:

How can I call render_to_string outside of a controller. I’m stuck on
this. I’ve nearly got my plugin finished but I can’t seem to get this
to work. The method is in ActionController::Base but it is protected.

I’m going to keep posting my attempts, maybe someone out there knows how
to do this. Here is the offending portion on code. It almost workd but
I get this:

protected method `render_to_string’ called for
#ActionController::Base:0xb7850f14

def execute_ruby_code( str )
render_class = ActionController::Base.new
logger.error(‘test’)
logger.error(render_class.class)
str = str.gsub(/<ruby>(.*?)</ruby>/) do |match|
match = render_class.render_to_string(:inline => $1, :type =>
‘rhtml’)
logger.error(match)
end
str
end

3

This is untested, but you could get around the protection by doing

match = render_class.instance_eval {render_to_string(:inline => $1,
:type =>
‘rhtml’)}

-RYaN

4

Thank you for your help! It got me past the protected method error, but
it appears that I’m still missing something. At line 992 there is
@assigns, it appears that this array is filled with the parameters from
the request header. Any clues on how to get around this. Again thank
you for your help!

NoMethodError in Admin/postController#preview

You have a nil object when you didn’t expect it!
You might have expected an instance of Array.
The error occured while evaluating nil.[]=

vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/base.rb:992:in
add_class_variables_to_assigns' vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/base.rb:991:inadd_class_variables_to_assigns’

Ryan W. wrote:

This is untested, but you could get around the protection by doing

match = render_class.instance_eval {render_to_string(:inline => $1,
:type =>
‘rhtml’)}

-RYaN

5

Hi!

On May 26, 2006, at 3:24 PM, charlie bowman wrote:

to do this. Here is the offending portion on code. It almost
str = str.gsub(/<ruby>(.*?)</ruby>/) do |match|
Rails mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

match = render_class.send(:render_to_string, {:inline =>

$1, :type => ‘rhtml’})

-Ezra

6

Thank you for your help! This method works just at the previous, but I’m
still getting the same nil object error. I decided to try something a
little different and I managed to get a little further. The code below
works for everything I’ve tried(which isn’t that much) but it breaks if
the template string has a link_to inside of it. The link to method
would be the most common bit of could I’m looking to use. I think when
the plugin is called I don’t have the proper response object. At least
that’s my theory.

Here is my error and code

NoMethodError (You have a nil object when you didn’t expect it!
The error occured while evaluating nil.url_for):
.//vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_view/helpers/url_helper.rb:27:in
url_for' .//vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_view/helpers/url_helper.rb:59:in link_to’
compiled-template:1:in _run_rhtml_2' .//vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_view/base.rb:314:in compile_and_render_template’
.//vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_view/base.rb:290:in
render_template' .//vendor/plugins/acts_as_blog/lib/acts_as_blog.rb:54:in execute_ruby_code’

def execute_ruby_code( str )
render_class = ActionView::Base.new
logger.error(‘test’)
logger.error(render_class.class)
str = str.gsub(/<ruby>(.*?)</ruby>/) do |match|
match = render_class.render_template(‘rhtml’,$1)
end
logger.error(str)
str
end

Ezra Z. wrote:

Hi!

On May 26, 2006, at 3:24 PM, charlie bowman wrote:

to do this. Here is the offending portion on code. It almost
str = str.gsub(/<ruby>(.*?)</ruby>/) do |match|
Rails mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

match = render_class.send(:render_to_string, {:inline =>

$1, :type => ‘rhtml’})

-Ezra

7

Hi !

On May 27, 2006, at 6:07 AM, charlie bowman wrote:

the plugin is called I don’t have the proper response object. At
.//vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_view/helpers/

http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

match = render_class.send(:render_to_string, {:inline =>

$1, :type => ‘rhtml’})

-Ezra

Charlie-

Maybe you can paste a little more code from your plugin? I'm a

little unclear exactly what you are trying to do. So maybe if you can
explain the problem you are trying to solve I can help?

Cheers-
-Ezra

8

Hi Charlie,

Did you ever fully resolve this?

I tried the “render_class.render_template(‘rhtml’,$1)” but get the
protected method error, and “render_class.send(:render_to_string,
{:inline =>
$1, :type => ‘rhtml’})” screws up when it hits the class assigns.

I created a patch for handling the link_to error that occurs when one
uses that controller method in mail templates:

http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/3517

which might help you here.

Currently I’m trying to use render_to_string in the selenese template
handler for the Selenium on Rails testing framework, so that we can
include ruby in our selenese scripts.

What I’d really like is be able to call more than one template handler
for a given file type …

CHEERS> SAM

9

Charlie-

Maybe you can paste a little more code from your plugin? I’m a
little unclear exactly what you are trying to do. So maybe if you can
explain the problem you are trying to solve I can help?

Cheers-
-Ezra

Ezra,
Thanks for taking the time to help!

The plugin I’m working on is going to allow me to embed ruby code into a
blog post and have it executed when it is retrieved or possibly before
it is saved. Here is an example of a blog post

the time is <%= Time.now %>

The above is currently working with the plugin. The following will not
it gives the error I mention above.

Here is my <%= link_to(‘link’,:controller => ‘foo’, :action =>
‘bar’)%>

The plugin is called acts_as_blog. Here is the code from
lib/acts_as_blog.rb

require ‘active_record’

Lets create a namespace

module TextConversion
## make it acts_as_blog
module Acts
module Blog

  def self.included(base)
    base.extend(ClassMethods)
  end

  module ClassMethods
    def acts_as_blog
      class_eval do
        extend TextConversion::Acts::Blog::SingletonMethods
      end
    end
  end

   module SingletonMethods
    def convert_to_html(txt, text_filter, restrictions = [])
                  return "" if txt.blank?
              return txt if text_filter.blank?

              text_filter.split.each do |filter|
              case filter
              when "markdown":
                      txt = BlueCloth.new(txt, restrictions).to_html
                    when "textile":
                      txt = self.encode_html(txt) if

restrictions.include?(:filter_html)
txt =
execute_ruby_code(txt) unless restrictions.include?(:filter_html)
txt = RedCloth.new(txt,
restrictions).to_html(:textile)
txt.gsub!(’\n’,’
’)
when “smartypants”:
txt = RubyPants.new(txt).to_html
end
end
return txt
end
def execute_ruby_code( str )
render_class =
ActionView::Base.new
logger.error(‘test’)
logger.error(render_class.class)
str =
str.gsub(/<ruby>(.*?)</ruby>/) do |match|
match =
render_class.render_template(‘rhtml’,$1)
#logger.error(match)
end
logger.error(str)
str
end

                            # Taken from BlueCloth since RedCloth's

filter_html is broken
def self.encode_html( str )
str.gsub!( “<”, “<” )
str.gsub!( “>”, “>” )
str
end
# etc…
end

  end

end

end

reopen ActiveRecord and include all the above to make

them available to all our models if they want it

ActiveRecord::Base.class_eval do
include TextConversion::Acts::Blog
end