# DRY way of updating flash in AJAX **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [July 12, 2009, 2:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dry-way-of-updating-flash-in-ajax/171966 "2009-07-12T14:16:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jhaagmans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/bc8723/32.png) [@jhaagmans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jhaagmans)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2009, 2:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dry-way-of-updating-flash-in-ajax/171966/1 "2009-07-12T14:16:37Z")
At this moment I’m implementing errors for my application. I have created a div for notices and warnings. The application only does AJAX requests, so it updates both flashes every time a request is made by the user. At this moment, I add a page.replace to every .rjs file at the end to update the flashes. If flash[:warning] is nil, it will remove any previous warnings and a flash[:notice] is added. It works, though this is not very DRY. What I would like to see is that with every AJAX- request, these flashes are updated automatically. I guess what I want is what any .rhtml file does in /app/views/layouts/, but now for .rjs files. How can this be done? I hope you understand my question. If you have a better way to report errors with AJAX requests, please let me know. I’m eager to learn! ---
**Author:** ![jhaagmans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/bc8723/32.png) [@jhaagmans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jhaagmans)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2009, 2:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dry-way-of-updating-flash-in-ajax/171966/2 "2009-07-12T14:36:28Z")
In addition to this, if possible, I would like the application to know whether to execute the lines in the .rjs file or display a warning by evaluating flash[:warning]. So, if I have a form in which you can add an object, I would automatically want to do: page.insert\_html :bottom, :object\_list, :partial =\> @object #only this line would actually be in the .rjs file page.replace\_html :notice, flash[:notice] flash.discard every time it actually does something and: page.replace\_html :notice, flash[:warning] flash.discard every time an error occurs. ---
**Author:** ![jhaagmans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/bc8723/32.png) [@jhaagmans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jhaagmans)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 8:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dry-way-of-updating-flash-in-ajax/171966/3 "2009-07-13T20:06:54Z")
I still haven’t found how to do this. The only thing I could think about was adding a .rjs file for the controller to /app/layouts, but that doesn’t work. Anyone? ---
**Author:** ![jhaagmans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/bc8723/32.png) [@jhaagmans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jhaagmans)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 10:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dry-way-of-updating-flash-in-ajax/171966/4 "2009-07-13T22:07:53Z")
I have a thought … I could add a general respond\_to to the end of my controller which responds to every AJAX-request. However, I’m unsure how to do this. I’ve tried a few things, but none of them seem to work the way I want them to. If this would work I would be able to evaluate flash[:warning] and based on that decide whether to go on without having to do anything else. Both flashes will be updated anyway, so on a request that doesn’t have a response, both flashes will be empty. Back to my question: how can I have my controller respond\_to every AJAX-request?