/ Ruby on Rails
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method

with_options

v3.0.0 - Show latest stable - Class: Object
with_options(options)
public

An elegant way to factor duplication out of options passed to a series of method calls. Each method called in the block, with the block variable as the receiver, will have its options merged with the default options hash provided. Each method called on the block variable must take an options hash as its final argument. 

  with_options :order => 'created_at', :class_name => 'Comment' do |post|
    post.has_many :comments, :conditions => ['approved = ?', true], :dependent => :delete_all
    post.has_many :unapproved_comments, :conditions => ['approved = ?', false]
    post.has_many :all_comments
  end

Can also be used with an explicit receiver: 

  map.with_options :controller => "people" do |people|
    people.connect "/people",     :action => "index"
    people.connect "/people/:id", :action => "show"
  end

3Notes

Nested with_options

Pilaf · Feb 23, 20096 thanks

You can nest with_options blocks, and you can even use the same name for the block parameter each time. E.g.:

class Product
with_options :dependent => :destroy do |product|
  product.with_options :class_name => 'Media' do |product|
    product.has_many :images, :conditions => {:content_type => 'image'}
    product.has_many :videos, :conditions => {:content_type => 'video'}
  end
  
  product.has_many :comments
end
end

This can be useful for conditional validation

himn1 · Oct 7, 2010

http://rubyquicktips.tumblr.com/post/411400798/conditional-validation-using-with-options-to-improve

Beware nested with_options clobbers!

kwerle · May 18, 2012

Careful: with_options :foo => :bar do |something| something.with_options :foo => :baz do |inner| what_is(:foo) end end

:foo will be :baz. It will not be [:bar, :baz], for example.

This bit me when trying to do nested with_options for validation where both had :if => something.