Render partial from Backgroundrb worker?

Rails
#1

Hi,

I have a long running task which generates JavaScript to files and I am
hoping to move this to a backgroundrb worker. The javascript is
currently generated with call to render_to_string:

File.open(File.join(target_folder, ‘all.js’), “w”) do |file|
file.puts(render_to_string :partial =>
‘partials/shared/javascript/tags’, :locals => { :namespaces =>
@namespaces, :tags => @tags, :parent_tags => @parent_tags, :show_counts
=> true })
end

It seems that the render_to_string is not available to the worker. Does
anyone know of a better way to achieve this using a partial? I can fall
back to generating the javascript text in a method, but this seems quite
an ugly solution (although will be much more performant than my current
in process solution).

Any tips or pointers would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
GiantCranes

#2

Dan,

Thanks! That worked well. The only slight modification was the addition
of the following lines:

require ‘active_support’
require ‘action_controller’
require ‘action_view’

Thanks again,
GiantCranes

#3

It is possible to render an action from backgroundrb, although it’s a
bit tedious. Backgroundrb doesn’t seem to load the controller layer
when it runs - I assume this is because it’s intended for manipulating
data, and not generating views, which makes sense. Anyway, in order to
get the rendering functions working you need to create a Dummy
controller that implements a few methods that render relies on. I’ve
included a stripped down version below which should work, although I
haven’t tested it. The example works on the older win32 compatible
version of backgroundrb, but I haven’t tried it on the newer *nix only
version.

====================================================

class SampleWorker < BackgrounDRb::Rails
require ‘action_view’

def do_work(args)
#redirect the rails default logger for active record to
backgroundrb
ActiveRecord::Base.logger= @logger

action_view =

ActionView::Base.new(Rails::Configuration.new.view_path, {},
DummyController.new)
action_view.render(:partial => “foo/bar”)
end
end

class DummyController

def logger
@logger
end

def headers
{‘Content-Type’ => ‘application/xml’}
end

def response
DummyResponse.new
end

def content_type
‘application/xml’
end

end

class DummyResponse
def content_type
‘application/xml’
end
end

====================================================
Hope that helps,

Dan