# Variable visible in all actions of the controller **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [November 28, 2007, 1:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/variable-visible-in-all-actions-of-the-controller/121497 "2007-11-28T13:51:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hipnotik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/41988e/32.png) [@Hipnotik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Hipnotik)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 1:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/variable-visible-in-all-actions-of-the-controller/121497/1 "2007-11-28T13:51:58Z")
Hi I would like to have variable visible for all actions of one controller. It’s something like admin panel where I have some actions, such as ‘list’, ‘new’, ‘edit’ and I have to display at the top of the page logged user’s name. How and where do I have to declare and assign variable like this? Thanks for help ---
**Author:** ![Hipnotik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/41988e/32.png) [@Hipnotik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Hipnotik)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 2:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/variable-visible-in-all-actions-of-the-controller/121497/2 "2007-11-28T14:06:44Z")
Hipnotik wrote: > Hi > I would like to have variable visible for all actions of one > controller. It’s something like admin panel where I have some actions, > such as ‘list’, ‘new’, ‘edit’ and I have to display at the top of the > page logged user’s name. > How and where do I have to declare and assign variable like this? > > Thanks for help why not use acts\_as\_authenticated? generally speaking, a session should suffice - that’s what most authentication systems use anyhow 😉 session[:user].name or something like that hth, –shai ---
**Author:** ![Hipnotik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/41988e/32.png) [@Hipnotik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Hipnotik)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 2:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/variable-visible-in-all-actions-of-the-controller/121497/3 "2007-11-28T14:57:44Z")
On Nov 28, 2:06 pm, Shai R. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > why not use acts\_as\_authenticated? > Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/. > I would like to not use additional plugins to do that. > It works on sessions, of course, and I know that I can put user\_name > in session but I would like to keep only user\_id and read other > information from database. But I don’t want to do something like: > @user\_name = User.find\_by\_id(session[:user\_id]) > in every action. I would like to do that once per controller and use > it in all views available for these actions. > Is it correct and possible? ---
**Author:** ![Hipnotik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/41988e/32.png) [@Hipnotik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Hipnotik)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 3:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/variable-visible-in-all-actions-of-the-controller/121497/4 "2007-11-28T15:42:53Z")
I guess you could write a helper method too, and use it in your view. ---
**Author:** ![Hipnotik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/41988e/32.png) [@Hipnotik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Hipnotik)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 3:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/variable-visible-in-all-actions-of-the-controller/121497/5 "2007-11-28T15:22:23Z")
On 28 Nov 2007, at 13:57, Hipnotik wrote: > I would like to not use additional plugins to do that. > It works on sessions, of course, and I know that I can put user\_name > in session but I would like to keep only user\_id and read other > information from database. But I don’t want to do something like: > @user_name = User.find\_by\_id(session[:user\_id]) > in every action. I would like to do that once per controller and use > it in all views available for these actions. > Is it correct and possible? A common solution is to use a before\_filter Fred