# Global documentation for Rails' ActionView

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/global-documentation-for-rails-actionview/135621>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [April 23, 2008, 5:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/global-documentation-for-rails-actionview/135621 "2008-04-23T17:49:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![pedz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/839c29/32.png) [@pedz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/pedz)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 5:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/global-documentation-for-rails-actionview/135621/1 "2008-04-23T17:49:28Z")

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I got myself rather confused yesterday. It started when I put a  
“form\_remote\_tag” in a helper method. I get the error that \_erbout is  
not defined. I dug around and found suggestions to put it into a  
template and do render(:partial =\> ‘foo’, …).

I was curious what magic render did that the helper was not doing on its  
own. That led me to bump into more confusion. Obviously the code works  
but I’m somewhat lost as to how. Here is my specific question.

In render :partial, it calls render\_for\_text which sets  
@performed\_render to true. That implies to me that I can not call  
render again for another partial but I know from past experience that I  
can.

Both of these tie back to the environment that is set up when a template  
is rendered. I’d like to know where that code is at and if there is  
some high’ish level documentation that can help me get started in  
understanding how these things work.

Thank you for your time,  
pedz

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**Author:** ![pedz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/839c29/32.png) [@pedz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/pedz)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 5:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/global-documentation-for-rails-actionview/135621/2 "2008-04-23T17:55:39Z")

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On 23 Apr 2008, at 16:49, Perry S. wrote:

> but I’m somewhat lost as to how. Here is my specific question.
> 
> In render :partial, it calls render\_for\_text which sets  
> @performed\_render to true. That implies to me that I can not call  
> render again for another partial but I know from past experience  
> that I  
> can.  
> it’s reset later in this particular case
> 
> Both of these tie back to the environment that is set up when a  
> template  
> is rendered. I’d like to know where that code is at and if there is  
> some high’ish level documentation that can help me get started in  
> understanding how these things work.

start from base.rb in rails/actionpack/lib/action\_view/ (and also in  
action\_controller). As far as I know there isn’t documention about  
this level of implementation detail other than the code. A lot of this  
is currently being tidied up.

Fred