Notes posted by arronwashington

Careful with this method.

Despite the name and description, it will actually update any changed fields on the model rather than just the desired attribute.

def update_attribute(name, value)
  send(name.to_s + '=', value)
  save(false)
end

See? Use update_all and pass in the model ID as a condition, instead.

RE: 1 render definition for many actions (cleaner)

Hi James,

Unfortunately that doesn’t work if you use the

@zombies 

variable in the rendered template, which is why default_render was added as a patch AFAIK. :)

before_filter is called too soon, after_filter is called after an attempt at rendering is made, so default_render is the only option for this as far as I know.

1 render definition for many actions.

Overriding default_render in especially useful when you have many actions that all render the same thing.

before_filter :render_filter, :only => [:zombies, :cool_zombies]

def zombies
  @zombies = Zombie.find(:all)
end

def cool_zombies
  @zombies = Zombie.find(:all, :conditions => { :eats_humans => false, :is_hippie => true })
end

protected

def render_filter
  instance_eval do
    def default_render
      render :template => 'zombies/all'
    end
  end
end

Used to get current Rails environment

Rails#env returns a string representing the current Rails environment.

Code example

>> Rails.env # in development mode
Rails.env
=> "development"