# Creating an email array based off search results **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [April 10, 2008, 9:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/creating-an-email-array-based-off-search-results/134442 "2008-04-10T21:25:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Etandrib](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/bbce88/32.png) [@Etandrib](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Etandrib)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 9:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/creating-an-email-array-based-off-search-results/134442/1 "2008-04-10T21:25:34Z")
I’m trying to perform a search a a list of people and then create an email based on the emails found in the result set. Any idea how to do this? I figure this is a model topic as I need the figure out the logic to generate an array of the emails in the results set. I’m using the acts\_as\_ferret plugin and the instance variable is @volunteers which means that the emails I need are in the instance variable @volunteers but I don’t know how to get them out of it and into the mail\_to link below - hopefully in the form of a nice method like “volunter\_emails\_from\_search” below. The code to generate the email looks like the following: ```auto <%= mail_to "#{volunter_emails_from_search}", "Email", :subject => "This is an example email" %> ``` ---
**Author:** ![Etandrib](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/bbce88/32.png) [@Etandrib](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Etandrib)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 4:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/creating-an-email-array-based-off-search-results/134442/2 "2008-04-11T16:51:38Z")
Is @volunteers an array of Volunteer models, perhaps where each has an :email attribute? Assuming that, it’s just a matter of iterating… \<% @volunteers.each do |volunteer| %\> \<%= mail\_to volunteer.email, volunteer.email, :subject =\> “the example subject” %\> \<% end %\> The “volunteer.email” is listed twice because it’s the link and it’s the display for the link. Does that help? Or were you needing something else? -Danimal ---
**Author:** ![Etandrib](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/bbce88/32.png) [@Etandrib](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Etandrib)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 4:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/creating-an-email-array-based-off-search-results/134442/3 "2008-04-14T16:27:20Z")
I’m actually looking to have one mail link that will mail to all the recipients below. So if I have 5 volunteers in the search results I can email them with a single click. Iterating just gives me multiple email links which I can easily do with the results. This should be a really easy thing to do I just can’t figure out how to pass an array of email address to the mail\_to parameters so I have a single link with an array of addresses. ---
**Author:** ![Etandrib](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/bbce88/32.png) [@Etandrib](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Etandrib)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 11:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/creating-an-email-array-based-off-search-results/134442/4 "2008-04-14T23:49:38Z")
> **[SightSpecific.com is for sale | HugeDomains](https://www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=sightspecific.com)** > > Get the premium .com domain you deserve. Seamless and professional transactions. Payment plans available. The problem is that there is no ideal way to include multiple addresses in the mail\_to link. So, I see two options: 1. just use one of the “nonstandard” ways, like having a list of email addresses separated by commas, or 2. instead of using a mail\_to link, have it call an action and have that action use ActionMailer. Then, you can specify all the addresses you need. If you go with option 1, just use: join(“,”) on the email addresses array. If you go with option 2, which is much better but more work, you can pass the array in as the recipients list. HTH! -Danimal ---
**Author:** ![Etandrib](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/bbce88/32.png) [@Etandrib](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Etandrib)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 5:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/creating-an-email-array-based-off-search-results/134442/5 "2008-04-14T17:54:38Z")
Etandrib wrote: > I’m actually looking to have one mail link that will mail to all the > recipients below. So if I have 5 volunteers in the search results I > can email them with a single click. Iterating just gives me multiple > email links which I can easily do with the results. This should be a > really easy thing to do I just can’t figure out how to pass an array > of email address to the mail\_to parameters so I have a single link > with an array of addresses. Create a button in the view that will post back with the list of addressees, and have the controller call a model method to do the emails… somebody somewhere will have to do the iteration, and I’d guess it should be the controller, unless you have a volunteer\_list model that understands multiple volunteers.