# Need help for Helper

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/need-help-for-helper/102665>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [January 27, 2007, 2:35am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/need-help-for-helper/102665 "2007-01-27T02:35:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Tomasz\_Tomczyk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/b487fb/32.png) [@Tomasz\_Tomczyk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Tomasz_Tomczyk)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2007, 2:35am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/need-help-for-helper/102665/1 "2007-01-27T02:35:38Z")

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I need a helper, which will render a table in my customized style.  
I wrote a code like this:

template.rhtml:  
\<% @column\_names = [“Name”, “Age”, “Sex”] %\>  
\<%= table\_show @column\_name %\>

helper.rb  
def table\_show(names)  
for name in names  
content\_tag ( :div, name, :class =\> ‘table\_header’ )  
end  
end

Which should give me an output like this:

Name

Age

Sex

Unfortunately I have only one line of output which looks like:  
NameAgeSex

After few trials it seems, that this output is being generated by line:  
“for name in names”, because deleting “content\_tag…” doesn’t make any  
differences.

What am I doing wrong?  
I suppose that helper def does treat an Array like a String…

Regards,  
Tomasz Tomczyk

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**Author:** ![Tomasz\_Tomczyk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/b487fb/32.png) [@Tomasz\_Tomczyk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Tomasz_Tomczyk)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2007, 4:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/need-help-for-helper/102665/2 "2007-01-27T16:25:53Z")

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Hi Tomasz,

Tomasz Tomczyk wrote:

> Which should give me an output like this:
> 
> Name
> 
> Age
> 
> Sex
> 
> Unfortunately I have only one line of output which looks like:  
> NameAgeSex

Are you saying you have one _visible_ line? Or that, when you look at  
the  
DOM you’ve actually got one string? Without seeing your code, my first  
guess would be that you’ve got a CSS problem, not a Rails problem. You  
might want to try the block form of content\_tag, just to help separate  
the  
issues.

hth,  
Bill

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tomasz\_Tomczyk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/b487fb/32.png) [@Tomasz\_Tomczyk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Tomasz_Tomczyk)\
**Post date:** [January 28, 2007, 1:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/need-help-for-helper/102665/3 "2007-01-28T13:51:10Z")

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Finally I’ve found the problem - it was me 🙂  
There was no return clause in the helper, which caused it to print  
everything in “for” loop.

Now its OK.

Thanks anyway,  
Tomasz Tomczyk