# What is a partial

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-is-a-partial/136001>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [April 27, 2008, 10:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-is-a-partial/136001 "2008-04-27T22:31:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ssmile](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@ssmile](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ssmile)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2008, 10:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-is-a-partial/136001/1 "2008-04-27T22:31:16Z")

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I am a newbie.

What is a “partial” in the web world? I have seen code like render  
:partial and I am at a loss as to what it means.

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**Author:** ![ssmile](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@ssmile](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ssmile)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2008, 11:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-is-a-partial/136001/2 "2008-04-27T23:41:31Z")

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partial is a snippet of code, like a button or an other element of  
page, which is pasted just like SMARTY tag 🙂

On 27 Kwi, 22:31, Irene S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)

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**Author:** ![ssmile](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@ssmile](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ssmile)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2008, 11:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-is-a-partial/136001/3 "2008-04-27T23:41:43Z")

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I don’t know about in the web world but in the Rails world, a partial is  
a small reusable view segment. Think of them like methods but for the  
view. So, you can extract partials (chunks of view code) and then render  
them in a template.

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**Author:** ![ssmile](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@ssmile](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ssmile)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2008, 12:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-is-a-partial/136001/4 "2008-04-28T00:00:42Z")

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Nathan E. wrote:

> I don’t know about in the web world but in the Rails world, a partial is  
> a small reusable view segment. Think of them like methods but for the  
> view. So, you can extract partials (chunks of view code) and then render  
> them in a template.

THanks Nathan for the explanation. It helped in my understanding.

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**Author:** ![ssmile](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@ssmile](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ssmile)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2008, 2:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-is-a-partial/136001/5 "2008-04-28T14:41:47Z")

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It should be pointed out that a partial need not necessarily be used  
just for outputting HTML markup. Just about all of your various Ajax  
support methods make some use of partials for generating XML,  
JavaScript, JSON, etc.

On Apr 28, 12:00 am, Irene S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)