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**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [July 23, 2006, 6:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-question-about-rhtml/99513 "2006-07-23T18:08:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1
**Author:**  [@Jean-Daniel\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jean-Daniel_B)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 6:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-question-about-rhtml/99513/1 "2006-07-23T18:08:28Z")
Hi everyone, coming from PHP something in the .rhtml files has been
confusing the heck out of me.
Why does this work?
\<% for header in @all\_headers %\>
\<%= header.subject %\>
\<% end %\>
## and both of these don’t work \<% for header in @all\_headers puts header.subject end %\>
\<%= for header in @all\_headers
puts header.subject
end %\>
Is there a way to output a ruby variable to the browser without using
the \<%= %\> tags (and only using the \<% %\>)? Why can’t I use a
puts/print/p to output to the browser?
Am I missing something?
Thanks,
JD
---
**Author:**  [@Jean-Daniel\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jean-Daniel_B)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 6:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-question-about-rhtml/99513/2 "2006-07-23T18:17:54Z")
Jean-Daniel B. wrote:
> Hi everyone, coming from PHP something in the .rhtml files has been
> confusing the heck out of me.
>
> Why does this work?
> \<% for header in @all\_headers %\>
> \<%= header.subject %\>
> \<% end %\>
>
> ## and both of these don’t work \<% for header in @all\_headers puts header.subject end %\>
>
> \<%= for header in @all\_headers
> puts header.subject
> end %\>
>
> Is there a way to output a ruby variable to the browser without using
> the \<%= %\> tags (and only using the \<% %\>)? Why can’t I use a
> puts/print/p to output to the browser?
>
> Am I missing something?
>
> Thanks,
>
> JD
Hi JD,
\<% is for server side execution (logic), \<%= is for something you want
rendered to the client.
Therefore, \<%= header.subject %\> is used to output the subject of the
header to the browser. If you put \<% header.subject %\> then you
wouldn’t see anything in the browser.
Hope that helps.
Michael
---
**Author:**  [@Jean-Daniel\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jean-Daniel_B)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2006, 11:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-question-about-rhtml/99513/3 "2006-07-24T11:16:09Z")
Jean-Daniel B. wrote:
> puts header.subject
The real question is - why would you use puts/print etc? That would be
doubling things up - the view code in Rails handles the output for you -
you just type what you want (within \<%= %\> tags if you need logic). puts
makes the view look … too “programmish” to me. If you have to use
logic the way you suggest, i suggest you look up render\_inline or render
:inline, which makes it possible to do these kinds of calculations in
the controller.
Regards,
Henning K.
---
**Author:**  [@Jean-Daniel\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jean-Daniel_B)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2006, 11:22am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-question-about-rhtml/99513/4 "2006-07-24T11:22:23Z")
Jena-Daniel -
because .rhtml uses ERb as a templating language, not an inline
scripting language.
So it behaves more like Smarty - and Smarty encourages you not to use
print statements, either.
In a templating language, you don’t want to be using print statements
- you want to be substituting the display of variables for where
content should be in the flat template.
puts/print dumps to STDOUT, iirc. You don’t want to dump to STDOUT.
You want to include a variable in a template to be rendered. \<%= %\>
means exactly that - display this variable in the page you render.
You should be getting used to \<%= %\> syntax, rather than trying to
work around it. Approaching pages as proper templates, rather than
taking the PHP one-big-file mentality to it is a practical and good
idea - I say this as a full-time client-side developer.
Hope that clarifies some things, JD.
t.
---
**Author:**  [@Jean-Daniel\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jean-Daniel_B)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 8:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-question-about-rhtml/99513/5 "2006-07-25T08:47:16Z")
Just for reference, you would need to use \_erbout.concat
(header.subject) instead of put. But don’t do this. Use \<%= %\> .
[http://railsexpress.de/blog/articles/2005/12/06/trim-your-output](http://railsexpress.de/blog/articles/2005/12/06/trim-your-output)
```
- dan
```
–
Dan K. [mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)
[http://www.dankohn.com/](http://www.dankohn.com/)tel:+1-415-233-1000