# Render partials in helper **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [August 11, 2008, 3:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/render-partials-in-helper/145510 "2008-08-11T03:47:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![heldopslippers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b9bd4f/32.png) [@heldopslippers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/heldopslippers)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2008, 3:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/render-partials-in-helper/145510/1 "2008-08-11T03:47:32Z")
hee people, Is it possible to render partials in helpers ? Why I want this: I have a menu that list many links but some of those items are children of other items. so i want to have different partials . Of course I could set the ruby code in my view but that is not cool (I think :P) I hope someone nows if this is possible jeljer te wies ---
**Author:** ![heldopslippers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b9bd4f/32.png) [@heldopslippers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/heldopslippers)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2008, 10:10am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/render-partials-in-helper/145510/2 "2008-08-11T10:10:59Z")
On Aug 11, 2:47 am, jeljer te Wies [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > hee people, > > Is it possible to render partials in helpers ? Yup, that’s fine. Is there a reason you thought it wouldn’t be possible? Fred ---
**Author:** ![heldopslippers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b9bd4f/32.png) [@heldopslippers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/heldopslippers)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2008, 2:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/render-partials-in-helper/145510/3 "2008-08-11T14:21:12Z")
On 11 Aug 2008, at 12:42, jeljer te Wies wrote: > That’s syntactically incorrect - it should be render :partial =\> ‘menu/test’ If that’s not the problem then you’re going to have to be a little more explicit than ‘it didn’t work’ Fred ---
**Author:** ![heldopslippers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b9bd4f/32.png) [@heldopslippers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/heldopslippers)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2008, 1:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/render-partials-in-helper/145510/4 "2008-08-11T13:42:39Z")
well I tryed to have a helper method like this: def test render :partial ‘menu/test’ end this didn’t work ---
**Author:** ![heldopslippers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b9bd4f/32.png) [@heldopslippers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/heldopslippers)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2008, 2:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/render-partials-in-helper/145510/5 "2008-08-11T14:30:58Z")
Frederick C. wrote: > On 11 Aug 2008, at 12:42, jeljer te Wies wrote: > > > > > That’s syntactically incorrect - it should be > render :partial =\> ‘menu/test’ > > If that’s not the problem then you’re going to have to be a little > more explicit than ‘it didn’t work’ > > Fred OOh I am sorry … I wasn’t clear. what i have now is this: def set\_menu render :partial =\> ‘menu/menu\_item’ render :partial =\> ‘menu/menu\_item’ end I want to render more partials in one helper method. But it renders only one partial !.. so my real question is . is it possible to render multiple partials in one helper method ---
**Author:** ![heldopslippers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b9bd4f/32.png) [@heldopslippers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/heldopslippers)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/render-partials-in-helper/145510/6 "2008-08-11T15:27:30Z")
On Aug 11, 1:30 pm, jeljer te Wies [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Frederick C. wrote: > > > On 11 Aug 2008, at 12:42, jeljer te Wies wrote: > > what i have now is this: > > def set\_menu > render :partial =\> ‘menu/menu\_item’ > render :partial =\> ‘menu/menu\_item’ > end The problem here is that you might not quite understandr what happens when you do \<%= some\_helper%\> Erb basically calls that method, calls to\_s on the result and sticks it into the document, so the key thing here is getting your set\_menu helper to return the right thing When you call render :partial =\> ‘…’ a string is returned containing the appropriate data. In ruby the value returned by a function is whatever the last statement evaluated, ie the second call to render. If you want to return the concatenation of those two things then you need to stick them together yourself, eg def set\_menu render( :partial =\> ‘menu/menu\_item’) + render( :partial =\> ‘menu/menu\_item’) end Fred PS: if that was your original question, saying so from the start would have saved time for everyone involved. ---
**Author:** ![heldopslippers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b9bd4f/32.png) [@heldopslippers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/heldopslippers)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2008, 4:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/render-partials-in-helper/145510/7 "2008-08-11T16:07:24Z")
yes you are right… But at first I thought that the problem was that it wasn’t possible to render partials at al. (and I couldn’t find the answer on google) thanxs ! allot … and I hope to answer questions on this forum as soon as I have a better understanding of ruby and rails.