# Controllers in folders and helper scope in Rails \>1.0

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controllers-in-folders-and-helper-scope-in-rails-1-0/58596>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [April 23, 2006, 8:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controllers-in-folders-and-helper-scope-in-rails-1-0/58596 "2006-04-23T20:53:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RafaSSS\_Komorowski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f9ae1b/32.png) [@RafaSSS\_Komorowski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/RafaSSS_Komorowski)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 8:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controllers-in-folders-and-helper-scope-in-rails-1-0/58596/1 "2006-04-23T20:53:12Z")

</div>

Hi,

Here’s my problem. I tried to google it, read the release-docs and  
haven’t found anything similar.  
My application uses folders to store controllers, as described in the  
Rails book. I need to have same-named controllers for admin and for  
users, so it looks like this:

/app/controllers/admin/project\_controller.rb  
/app/controllers/admin/…  
/app/controllers/project\_controller.rb  
/app/controllers/…

The controller-classes are properly scoped like this:

```
/app/controllers/admin/project_controller.rb has:

	class Admin::ProjectController < ApplicationController
	  layout "admin"
	  def index
		...
	  end

/app/controllers/project_controller.rb has:

	class ProjectController < ApplicationController
	  layout "user"
	  def index
		...
	  end

```

Those controllers make use of helpers, and again, there are global  
ones (used by both by users and admins), and special ones for admins.  
So it looks like this:

/app/helpers/admin/project\_helper.rb  
/app/helpers/admin/…  
/app/helpers/project\_helper.rb  
/app/helpers/…

The admin helper contains properly scoped content:

```
module Admin::ProjectHelper
...
end

```

and normal helper has also:

```
module ProjectHelper
...
end

```

It is important, that admin-scope controllers are also accessing and  
using constants and classes defined in user-scope helpers. This  
worked fine in 0.14.x and in 1.0 versions of Rails. Now I’m trying to  
move to 1.1.1 through Locomotive bundle or 1.1.2 through normal means  
(sudo gem update rails, …, etc) and this behavour breaks.

The original working code in the admin-controller is like this:

```
class Admin::ProjectController < ApplicationController
  layout "admin"
  def index
    @project_display_options =

```

ProjectHelper::ProjectDisplayOptions.new(params, session)  
…

and it accessed ProjectDisplayOptions class from the user-scope helper:

```
module ProjectHelper
  class ProjectDisplayOptions
    attr_accessor :project
    ...

```

Now, in Rails 1.1.x, my application breaks as if the user-helper  
scope was unavailable for admin-scope controller:

```
NameError in Admin/projectController#index
uninitialized constant ProjectDisplayOptions
...
#{RAILS_ROOT}/app/controllers/admin/project_controller.rb:6:in `index'

```

line 6 leads to:  
@project\_display\_options = ProjectHelper::ProjectDisplayOptions.new  
(params, session)

The browser response also contains this:  
This error occured while loading the following files:  
admin/project\_helper/project\_display\_options.rb

which seems to come from the new dynamic mechanism trying to load an  
unknown class from a same-named file. But I’m not sure is this is  
really what’s supposed to happen.  
I can fix the problem by copying-pasting the problematic class from  
user-scope helper to the admin-scope-helper, but this is not DRY, of  
course. And what happened, that the behaviour of Rails has changes in  
1.1? I can’t find anything relevant in the release-notes.  
My application is a small internal tool, but certainly is was running  
for the last six months on 0.13, 0.14 and on 1.0 versions of Rails.

Any help? TIA.

–

RafaÅ? Komorowski  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
GG: 4083718  
[http://homepage.mac.com/komor/iblog/](http://homepage.mac.com/komor/iblog/)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RafaSSS\_Komorowski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f9ae1b/32.png) [@RafaSSS\_Komorowski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/RafaSSS_Komorowski)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2006, 11:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controllers-in-folders-and-helper-scope-in-rails-1-0/58596/2 "2006-04-24T23:43:50Z")

</div>

On 23/04/2006, at 20:49, RafaÅ? Komorowski wrote:

> My application uses folders to store controllers, as described in  
> the Rails book.  
> [cut]  
> /app/controllers/admin/project\_controller.rb  
> /app/controllers/admin/…  
> /app/controllers/project\_controller.rb  
> /app/controllers/…  
> [cut]  
> /app/helpers/admin/project\_helper.rb  
> /app/helpers/admin/…  
> /app/helpers/project\_helper.rb  
> /app/helpers/…

[cut]

> Now, in Rails 1.1.x, my application breaks as if the user-helper  
> scope was unavailable for admin-scope controller:

I solved my problem by changing this:

```
 @project_display_options =

```

ProjectHelper::ProjectDisplayOptions.new(params, session)

to this:

```
 @project_display_options

```

= ::ProjectHelper::ProjectDisplayOptions.new(params, session)

in the admin controller code.

Seems reasonable, but still I’m pretty sure something has changed in  
the Rails 1.1, because I’ve done a test:

- make a fresh empty app,
- generate controllers (with admin in subfolder),
- fill-in a placeholder code in controllers, helpers and views.
- see if it works to access user-scope helper in admin-scope controller.

The interesting thing happens then in Rails 1.1.x: if my initial  
request is the admin-scope one ([http://localhost:3000/admin/project](http://localhost:3000/admin/project))  
then application fails, as if Rails couldn’t see the user-scope  
helper yet. But after issuing user-scope request ([http://localhost](http://localhost):  
3000/project) the admin controller runs okay, as if Rails already  
“saw” the helper and loaded it properly. I’m wondering if this is the  
way Rails works?

All those tests were done in Rails 1.1.2 installed by normal means  
([Dan Benjamin](http://hivelogic.com/articles/2005/12/01/)  
ruby\_rails\_lighttpd\_mysql\_tiger) on Mac OS X 10.4.6, and also through  
Locomotive with 1.1.1 bundle, and they fail in the described way.  
But when using Locomotive with 1.0 bundle the app succeeds always,  
that is: admin-scope controller _always_ sees user-scope helper, and  
my problematic application works fine, and it did for the last couple  
of months.

So my suspection here is: Rails 1.1 is “lazy” in loading helpers, and  
Rails 1.0 is not. Or it is my fault and I’ve always should prefix my  
call with the :: in the admin-scope code?  
If all my observations are not a crap and anybody is interested in  
investigating it, I can prepare a step-by-step instruction how to  
replicate a problem, with a test code (simple placeholder code, that  
is).

–

RafaÅ? Komorowski  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
GG: 4083718  
[http://homepage.mac.com/komor/iblog/](http://homepage.mac.com/komor/iblog/)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RafaSSS\_Komorowski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f9ae1b/32.png) [@RafaSSS\_Komorowski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/RafaSSS_Komorowski)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 10:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controllers-in-folders-and-helper-scope-in-rails-1-0/58596/3 "2006-04-26T10:11:58Z")

</div>

Everybody seems to ignore my thread 🙂 so I will throw one last  
question: is it wrong to call objects/methods defined in helper from  
the controller code?

–

RafaÅ? Komorowski  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
GG: 4083718  
[http://homepage.mac.com/komor/iblog/](http://homepage.mac.com/komor/iblog/)

---

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**Author:** ![RafaSSS\_Komorowski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f9ae1b/32.png) [@RafaSSS\_Komorowski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/RafaSSS_Komorowski)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 10:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controllers-in-folders-and-helper-scope-in-rails-1-0/58596/4 "2006-04-26T10:41:57Z")

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On 26/04/2006, at 10:28, Chris T wrote:

> Just to show it’s not being ignored (and speaking as a not-  
> completely-got-my-head-around-OO-yet-ex-PHPer),

Thanks Chris 😃

> I _think_ that helpers are supposed to be called from views. From  
> the API:

Yes, I’ve read this in the Rails book, too. But I have some data-  
structures that seem to be both model-related, and view-related. Some  
popup menus that are commonly built in the views, you know: project-  
type, custom month-list or whatever. Should I just move them to the  
model? Or to the controller, better yet.

–

RafaÅ? Komorowski  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
GG: 4083718  
[http://homepage.mac.com/komor/iblog/](http://homepage.mac.com/komor/iblog/)

---

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**Author:** ![RafaSSS\_Komorowski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f9ae1b/32.png) [@RafaSSS\_Komorowski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/RafaSSS_Komorowski)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 10:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controllers-in-folders-and-helper-scope-in-rails-1-0/58596/5 "2006-04-26T10:27:37Z")

</div>

RafaÅ? Komorowski wrote:

> * * *
> 
> Rails mailing list  
> removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
> [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails)

Just to show it’s not being ignored (and speaking as a  
not-completely-got-my-head-around-OO-yet-ex-PHPer), I _think_ that  
helpers are supposed to be called from views. From the API:

```
The template helpers serve to relieve the templates from including
the same inline code again and again. Itâ??s a set of standardized
methods for working with forms (FormHelper), dates (DateHelper),
texts (TextHelper), and Active Records (ActiveRecordHelper) thatâ??s
available to all templates by default.

Itâ??s also really easy to make your own helpers and itâ??s much
encouraged to keep the template files free from complicated logic.
Itâ??s even encouraged to bundle common compositions of methods from
other helpers (often the common helpers) as theyâ??re used by the
specific application.

```

I am struggling slightly (and I think it’s mainly me failing to 100% get  
my head around the OO bit) where you then put methods used by controller  
actions (in that controller, in application.rb, in /lib, or, I suspect,  
to analyse things better so they better fit into MVC).

Not sure this helps…

---

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**Author:** ![RafaSSS\_Komorowski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f9ae1b/32.png) [@RafaSSS\_Komorowski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/RafaSSS_Komorowski)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 5:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controllers-in-folders-and-helper-scope-in-rails-1-0/58596/6 "2006-04-26T17:20:14Z")

</div>

On Apr 26, 2006, at 1:40 AM, RafaÅ? Komorowski wrote:

> Yes, I’ve read this in the Rails book, too. But I have some data-  
> structures that seem to be both model-related, and view-related.  
> Some popup menus that are commonly built in the views, you know:  
> project-type, custom month-list or whatever. Should I just move  
> them to the model? Or to the controller, better yet.

Helpers are perfect for popups. I use helpers like this, but I have  
them return just the data the built-in helper needs so the view is  
very easy to understand and adjust:

def born\_on\_start\_year  
Time.now.years\_ago(18).year  
end

def born\_on\_end\_year  
Time.now.years\_ago(100).year  
end

def gender\_select  
[[ ‘Male’, ‘M’],  
[‘Female’,‘F’] ]  
end

Gender:  
  
\<%= select ‘buyer’, ‘gender’, gender\_select %\>  
  
Birthday:  
  
\<%= date\_select ‘buyer’, ‘born\_on’, :start\_year =\>  
born\_on\_start\_year, :end\_year =\> born\_on\_end\_year, :order =\>  
[:month,:day,:year] %\>

If they’re in more than one view, put them in application\_helper.rb

These particular helpers don’t need models, but here’s one that does:

def unit\_select  
Unit.find(:all,  
:order =\> ‘seconds’).map {|u| [u.name, u.id]}  
end

\<%= select ‘seller’,‘unit\_id’, get\_units %\>

–  
– Tom M.