Lame newbie question: how to pass instance variables

Rails
1

This should be obvious - but I’m a long-time non-web app programmer and
new to rails.

I simply want to put something in a variable in one action and access it
in another.

It’s like this, I’m doing a simple photo gallery/managment app, and I
have two actions in my picture_controller:

The first one scans the picture directory and creates a new object in
the pictures table for each picture it finds. The work is all done in a
method in the Picture model which returns an array containing the new
picture objects.

The second method is a normal list method, but instead of getting it’s
data from the db, gets it from that scan method - because it only lists
newly found pictures. At least that’s the plan.
How do I pass the array found in the first action to the second one.

So in the action we have something like this:

def scan_directory
# new_pics is an instance variable I’m creating here - I want
# to access it in my other action to get only the new pictures.
# There’s nothing in the database record to indicate what’s new,
it’s
# just a question of which new pics I found when calling
scan_directory
@new_pics = Picture.load_directory(".")
flash[:notice] = “Original image directory was refreshed
#{@new_pics.length} new images found”
redirect_to :controller => ‘picture’, :action => ‘list_new_pictures’
end

def list_new_pictures

# Is this how I should use a paginator when my list is not from the

db?
# Note that I get an exception here, because @new_pics is always
nil!

@picture_pages = Paginator.new self, @new_pics.count, 12,

@params[‘page’]

@pictures = @new_pics
render :action => 'list'

end

So what am I doing wrong? Is it not right to expect that instance
variables to hold values across actions? Why not?

Should I be shoving the @new_pics array into one of the hashes that gets
passed back and forth between the view and controller?

Is my paginator correct?

any help appreciated

2

bump - simple question - someone must know.

3

rhubarb wrote:

So what am I doing wrong? Is it not right to expect that instance
variables to hold values across actions? Why not?
They don’t hold their values across actions because Rails’ execution
model dictates that each action takes place in a new instance of the
controller.

There are two ways to get what you’re trying to do to work. The first
is to call render rather than redirect_to in the scan_directory action.
That would call the list_new_pictures method directly in the same
controller, so the instance variable would be available. The second
would be to put your list of pictures into either the session or the
params hash before issuing the redirect, then fishing it out again in
the list_new_pictures action.

I’d tend towards the former, because it’s less code.

I can’t comment on the paginator, because I don’t use it much…

4

you can put it in session, params or flash (the last one was missing).
flash
is cleared after a page rendering, and this is why I use it rather than
the
others.

5

Nicolas B. wrote:

you can put it in session, params or flash (the last one was missing).
flash
is cleared after a page rendering, and this is why I use it rather than
the
others.

actually I’ve decided against render because I want to change the URL.
So I’m left with one of these.
so how do I put it in, say, the params. I tried
@params[:new_pictures] = new_pics

and later in a different action

new_pics = @params[:new_pictures]

but I get a nil error.
What am I doing wrong.

Also that Pagination trick I tried above isnt working - Im getting
everything in one page. Ideas?

6

Alex Y. wrote:

There are two ways to get what you’re trying to do to work. The first
is to call render rather than redirect_to in the scan_directory action.
That would call the list_new_pictures method directly in the same
controller, so the instance variable would be available. The second
would be to put your list of pictures into either the session or the
params hash before issuing the redirect, then fishing it out again in
the list_new_pictures action.

I’d tend towards the former, because it’s less code.

I can’t comment on the paginator, because I don’t use it much…

That’s exactly what I needed to know. That controller is reinstantiated
for every action call is a key point that I never noticed in any of the
docs.
Thanks Alex!

7

On Mar 13, 2006, at 12:50 PM, rhubarb wrote:

So I’m left with one of these.
Also that Pagination trick I tried above isnt working - Im getting
everything in one page. Ideas?

–

Lets break this down a bit for you. Lets assume you want to redirect
from action foo to action bar and keep something in the params along
the way:

def foo
# the rest of your code
params[:new_pictures] = new_pics
redirect_to :action => 'bar, :params => params
end

def bar
# now params[:new_pictures] has what you want it to have.
end

-Cheers
-Ezra Z.
Yakima Herald-Republic
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