# Don't understand Paginator/Page or Ruby construct **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [October 1, 2006, 4:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dont-understand-paginator-page-or-ruby-construct/70658 "2006-10-01T16:32:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![thomas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e36b37/32.png) [@thomas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/thomas)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 4:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dont-understand-paginator-page-or-ruby-construct/70658/1 "2006-10-01T16:32:49Z")
Just wasted two hours trying to save the current page in the session. My first approach was stolen from the scaffolded view: session[:page] = @person\_pages.current But - as I discovered later - this saves a Page object, not only the page number. To save the current page I had to use session[:page] = @person\_pages.current.number Scaffolding generates links like: \<%= link\_to ‘Previous page’, { :page =\> @person\_pages.current.previous } if @person\_pages.current.previous %\> and generates a number (the page number) as action parameter. Can someone explain shortly why the (working) code generated by scaffolding in the view evaluates @person\_pages.current.previous (a Page object) to a number whereas @person\_pages.current (also a Page object) called in the action returns the Page object ? Thanks, Thomas ---
**Author:** ![thomas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e36b37/32.png) [@thomas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/thomas)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 4:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dont-understand-paginator-page-or-ruby-construct/70658/2 "2006-10-01T16:38:50Z")
It probably does a to\_s on it which returns a ‘number’. Vish ---
**Author:** ![thomas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e36b37/32.png) [@thomas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/thomas)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 4:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dont-understand-paginator-page-or-ruby-construct/70658/3 "2006-10-01T16:42:50Z")
On Oct 1, 2006, at 16:29, Thomas wrote: > Can someone explain shortly why the (working) code generated by > scaffolding in the view evaluates @person\_pages.current.previous (a > Page object) to a number whereas @person\_pages.current (also a Page > object) called in the action returns the Page object ? Views default to calling to\_s on objects to get the value to render, hence \<%= @person\_pages.current %\> in a view is really the return value of @person\_pages.current.to\_s. – Jakob S. - [http://mentalized.net](http://mentalized.net) ---
**Author:** ![thomas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e36b37/32.png) [@thomas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/thomas)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 7:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dont-understand-paginator-page-or-ruby-construct/70658/4 "2006-10-01T19:03:18Z")
On 10/1/06, Jakob S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Views default to calling to\_s on objects to get the value to render, > hence \<%= @person\_pages.current %\> in a view is really the return > value of @person\_pages.current.to\_s. Thank you very much. In my opionion, it’s a bug. With my limited experience in Rails and Ruby, I have seen the view as “the thing displaying my instance vars” and the code written in the view as “another method of the controller”. Now I discover that something too much magic happens and the code in the views are interpreted differently, so forcing me to remember an unnecessary detail (“remember always - coding in ‘Controller’ or ‘View’ context ?”, “be aware when you copy/paste some expressions”). As the real fix (either remove to\_s from Pages or the magic from the view interpreter) most likely will break existing code, maybe it would be nice when at least the scaffolder adds ‘to\_s’ ? Thomas