Empty file_column

Rails
1

Hey guys,

I am trying to create a helper to distinguish wether a field that
employs the use of file_colum is empty or not for the purpose of a
users personal image.

The reason that i am doing this is because when displaying the records
i am presented with the following error:

You have a nil object when you didn’t expect it!
The error occurred while evaluating nil.PHOTO_relative_path

…when calling the PHOTO field with this code:

<%= image_tag url_for_file_column(“user”, “PHOTO”) %>

This is because some users do not have an uploaded photo.

What i want to do is to work out whether or not the PHOTO field is
empty or not and act accordingly. If the field has a url to an image
then display that image using the image_tag else if the field is empty
i want to either insert the url of a default image or just force the
system to automatically display the default image.

Based on the way that file_colum works im going to guess it is easier
to just point the system to an image location if the field is empty
instead of trying to force a url into the db record.

Ok i am a bit of a newby at this so can someone confirm to me that
this would indeed be achieved with a helper or would this code go
somewhere else?

I have been toying with the following:

<% if collector.PHOTO.blank? %>
<%= image_tag("/images/avatar_thumb.jpg") %>
<% else %>
<%= image_tag("#{collector.PHOTO}") %>
<% end %>

…which works interms of determining if the field is blank or not but
it does not display the image if the field is not empty. In order to
do that i would have to use the call i had been previously using:

<%= image_tag url_for_file_column(“user”, “PHOTO”) %>

…but this then throws up the initial error again. Plus i know that
this is in the List view at current and im sure it would be tidier to
do it somewhere else.

Cheers in advance for any help.

Pete

2

first of all, if it isn’t too late, i wouldn’t use file_column, as the
development of that is stopped, and there are other capable better
plugins out there that do uploading just as well.

that’s for starters. but, if it’s too late / not important enough to
switch to something else, i’d have to raise two pointers:

in order for an image to be displayed here
<%= image_tag url_for_file_column(“user”, “PHOTO”) %>

you will need the following:

  • a GLOBAl variable (with the ‘@’ sign), which means, in this case, u’ll
    need

<% @user = User.find(id) %>
<%= image_tag url_for_file_column(“user”, “PHOTO”) %>

now, make sure u don’t error out:
<%= image_tag url_for_file_column(“user”, “PHOTO”) unless
@user.PHOTO.nil? %>

(basically, in order to escape the errors raised, u need two checks -
one to see the user exists/defined, and one to see the PHOTO (btw, why
is this caps?) field isn’t nil either.

3

actually because of ActiveRecord magic, you could just do @user.photo?
this
will check for both nil values and empty strings.

Also check out UploadColumn, it works pretty much the
same
way file_column does, but it’s under active development, and less
buggy/confusing.</shameless plug>

/Jonas