RJS doesn't execute raw Javascript?

Rails
1

I have an RJS script that renders a partial with some javacript that
runs a calendar script. Basically:

var cal_#{id} = new CalendarPopup();
cal_#{id}.setReturnFunction(“setMultipleCalDateValues_#{id}”);

But this doesn’t seem to get executed within the browser. In fact, if I
view the “generated source” in Firefox the JS portion doesn’t even show
up. If I use “page << “[javascript source]”” it doesn’t work either.
If I render the partial from within a view it works fine. If I call the
RJS directly I can see the javascript within a try block.

Can anyone help me understand what is going on?

2

RJS is Ruby code that generates Javascript. So just typing out straight
Javascript gets interpreted as Ruby, but if it’s just a string it gets
discarded as an unused local variable.

page << “javascript” is what you want. Can we see the entirety of the
RJS
file?

Jason

3

Jason R. wrote:

RJS is Ruby code that generates Javascript. So just typing out straight
Javascript gets interpreted as Ruby, but if it’s just a string it gets
discarded as an unused local variable.

page << “javascript” is what you want. Can we see the entirety of the
RJS
file?

Jason

page << “var cal_#{@entry_number} = new CalendarPopup();
cal_#{@entry_number}.setReturnFunction(“setMultipleCalDateValues_#{@entry_number}”);”
page.insert_html :before, ‘total_row’,:partial => ‘entry_line’, :locals
=> {:entry_number => @entry_number, :time_entry => @time_entry}
page.replace ‘add_link’, :partial => ‘add_link’, :object =>
@entry_number
page.visual_effect :highlight, ‘total_row’, :duration => 3

That’s the RJS file. But like I said. Even if that javascript code is
in the ‘entry_line’ partial, it still doesn’t seem to get executed.

4

Do you have Firebug installed? There’s probably an error in the code
somewhere that’s halting execution.

Jason

5

Jason R. wrote:

Do you have Firebug installed? There’s probably an error in the code
somewhere that’s halting execution.

Jason

I do now :slight_smile:

The console doesn’t show any errors. Is there somewhere else I should
look?

6

another update:

The error I’m actually getting is that cal_[id] (the one that I’m
creating with ‘var cal_[id] = new CalendarPopup();’) is not defined when
I click on a image that references cal_[id] in it’s onClick. Is
variable created, but in a different context?

7

update:

If I replace my javascript with “alert(“test”);” I get the alert. So
I think it’s trying to execute but is not for some reason. Since the
javascript works when called as a partial within a view, could it have
something to do with how it is serialized for the ajax response?

8

Ryan Belcher wrote:

another update:

The error I’m actually getting is that cal_[id]

I don’t know what your general issue is, but ‘cal_[id]’ is not a valid
HTML id code. They can’t have a [] in them. That’s why Rails emits
tags with dual identifiers; a name like ‘cal_[id]’, and an id like
‘cal__id’.

So if you really mean an id there…

–
Phlip
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZeekLand ← NOT a blog!!

9

Phlip wrote:

Ryan Belcher wrote:

another update:

The error I’m actually getting is that cal_[id]

I don’t know what your general issue is, but ‘cal_[id]’ is not a valid
HTML id code. They can’t have a [] in them. That’s why Rails emits
tags with dual identifiers; a name like ‘cal_[id]’, and an id like
‘cal__id’.

So if you really mean an id there…

–
Phlip
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZeekLand ← NOT a blog!!

Yeah, I meant an id as in cal_2 or cal_3.

Doing some more testing I figured out than I can alert cal_[id] in the
javascript in the RJS file and it sees it as an object. So the variable
is getting defined, but when I reference it in an onClick on the page
it’s not defined. Which leads me to believe it’s getting
defined/executed in a different context than the main window.

Is that supposed to be the case?

10

It’s very possible. I can’t remember what scoping Javascript does for
different browsers, but your RJS code is executed as such:

try {
[ your code here ]
} catch {
alert("[your code here again]"); // in development mode
}

So you’re defining the variables in a try/catch block, which might be
causing scoping issues.

Jason

11

Jason R. wrote:

It’s very possible. I can’t remember what scoping Javascript does for
different browsers, but your RJS code is executed as such:

try {
[ your code here ]
} catch {
alert("[your code here again]"); // in development mode
}

So you’re defining the variables in a try/catch block, which might be
causing scoping issues.

Jason

That’s it. I was using the var keyword when declaring cal_[id]. If I
remove var then I can access the variable in the rest of the page.

Thanks to everyone for helping me work through this.

12

Ryan Belcher wrote:

Jason R. wrote:

It’s very possible. I can’t remember what scoping Javascript does for
different browsers, but your RJS code is executed as such:

try {
[ your code here ]
} catch {
alert("[your code here again]"); // in development mode
}

So you’re defining the variables in a try/catch block, which might be
causing scoping issues.

Jason

That’s it. I was using the var keyword when declaring cal_[id]. If I
remove var then I can access the variable in the rest of the page.

Thanks to everyone for helping me work through this.

Also for anyone else interested in this problem:

I was also defining a function by name “function fname_1 (){}” and I
could not access this function elsewhere in the document. I needed to
assign the function to a variable “fname_1 = function () {}”

13

page << “var cal_#{@entry_number} = new CalendarPopup();
cal_#{@entry_number}.setReturnFunction(“setMultipleCalDateValues_#{@entry_number}”);”
page.insert_html :before, ‘total_row’,:partial => ‘entry_line’, :locals
=> {:entry_number => @entry_number, :time_entry => @time_entry}
page.replace ‘add_link’, :partial => ‘add_link’, :object =>
@entry_number
page.visual_effect :highlight, ‘total_row’, :duration => 3

That’s the RJS file. But like I said. Even if that javascript code is
in the ‘entry_line’ partial, it still doesn’t seem to get executed.

I encountered this problem before and it seems that escaping the double
quotes is the problem. must be a bug in rjs or something.