Ruby On Rails: access a variable from a form, without saving it to database

Just declare attribute in your model and use it.

attr_accessor :value

if you use params[:field_name] in Rails, this is similar to $_REQUEST['field_name'] in PHP (except params in Rails doesn't include cookies, as $_REQUEST does)

I do not want to save the data in any database.

its simple don't create any model. or if you must create model. create model without inheritance from ActiveRecord::Base

class UserModel 

but not

class UserModel <  ActiveRecord::Base

for PHP, I could user $_GET and %_POST function.

use params variable in controller

If you don't have a model, but just simply a variable, I would prefer using form_tag instead of form_for

<%= form_tag :action => "your_page_3_action" $>
    <%= text_field_tag :some_var %>

Something like that. And then you could get back the :some_var through:

def your_page_3_action
  params[:some_var] # that's your input valut

Try something like this

Page1 -> index

Page2 ->

say you have a model called user which is not inherited from ActiveRecord, so it will be looks like this

class User
  attr_accessor :my_value   
end

and you will have a form like this

<% form_for(@user) do |f| %>
  <p>
    <%= f.text_field :my_value %>
  </p>
  <p>
    <%= f.submit 'send value' %>
  </p>
<% end %>

** sorry i had to remove some tags

and in your form post action (in controller), you can get the value as

params[:user][:my_value]

hope this helps

cheers

sameera