Question about variable assignments/scoping after render cal

Rails
1

I’ve got a question about how variables are made available to templates.
We
have a test that looks something like this:

def test_variable_assigned
xhr :get, :do_stuff, :id => 1
assert_not_nil assigns(:thing)
end

And our app code looks like this:

class SuperClass < ActionController
def do_stuff
@parent_model = ParentModel.find(params[:id])
render :template => ‘superclass/do_stuff’
end
end

class SubClass < SuperClass
def do_stuff
super
@thing = @parent_model.thing
end
end

When we run our tests with the code above, it fails saying that
assigns(:thing) is nil. If we redefine do_stuff in SubClass to look
like:

def do_stuff
@thing = ParentModel.find(params[:id])
super
end

then the test will pass. Unfortunately, this requires an extra database
query to find the parent model twice. Is there a way of telling the
view to
reload its member variables after render has been called, but still
render
whatever the chosen template is?

-dmg

2

David Goudreau wrote:

class SuperClass < ActionController
end

then the test will pass. Unfortunately, this requires an extra database
query to find the parent model twice. Is there a way of telling the
view to reload its member variables after render has been called, but
still render whatever the chosen template is?

Perhaps write either:

class SuperClass < ActionController
def do_stuff(parent_model = nil)
@parent_model = parent_model
render :template => ‘superclass/do_stuff’
end
end

class SubClass < SuperClass
def do_stuff
parent_model = ParentModel.find(params[:id])
@thing = parent_model.thing
super(parent_model)
end
end

or

class SuperClass < ActionController
def do_stuff(obj = nil)
@parent_model = ParentModel.find(params[:id])
instance_variable_set(’@’+obj, @parent_model.send(obj)) if obj
render :template => ‘superclass/do_stuff’
end
end

class SubClass < SuperClass
def do_stuff
super(‘thing’)
end
end

–
We develop, watch us RoR, in numbers too big to ignore.