Rails3 rendering action from another controller

Question

i want to render an action from another controller, but i get the error:

undefined method `formats' for nil:NilClass

<script>
$("#validate_company").live("keyup", function() {
 $("#company_info").html("<%= escape_javascript(render(:controller => 'live_validation', :action => 'validate_client_company')) %>");
});
</script>

This is the Controller:

class LiveValidationsController < ApplicationController

def validate_client_company
  if params[:first_name].length > 0
    @client = Client.find_by_company(params[:company])
    if @client.nil?
      @message = "<img src='/images/accepted_48.png' alt='Valid Username'/>"
    else
      @message = "<img src='/images/cancel_48.png' alt='Invalid Username' /> Name taken"
    end
  else
    @message = ""
  end
  render :partial => "message"
end

end

The partial _message is just

<%= @message %>

post your "message" partial and why do you render partial from controller ? — Bohdan
– Bohdan, Commented Dec 9, 2010 at 14:57

nathanvda · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-09 20:25:34Z

2

You seem to be mixing up stuff.

You have html inside your controller-method? That should be in your view. For each controller-method, normally a view with the same name is rendered, except if you explicitly call render from within your controller-method.

You do not write html in your controller. You write html in the view, and sometimes you have helpers to make your views more readable.

Secondly, in your first piece of code, which is some view-code, i hope. The view is prepared at server-side and then sent to the client. You can render another view, a partial, from a view. But this does not load data live.

How i would fix this. Inside your views where you want to dynamically render the validation:

<script>
  $("#validate_company").live("keyup", function() {
    $("#company_info").load("<%= url_for :controller => 'live_validations', :action => 'validate_client_company' %>");
  });
</script>

Then inside your controller you write:

class LiveValidationsController < ApplicationController

  def validate_client_company
    if params[:first_name].length > 0
      @client = Client.find_by_company(params[:company])
      @error = @client.nil? ? :valid_username : :invalid_username
    else
      @error = nil
    end
    render :partial => "message", :layout => false
  end

end

Inside your app/helper/live_validations_helper.rb you add a method

def get_validation_message(error)
  if error == :invalid_username
    image_tag('/images/cancel_48.png', :alt => 'Invalid Username') + "Name taken"
  elsif error == :valid_username
    image_tag('/images/accepted_48.png', :alt => 'Valid Username')
  end
end

and inside your message view you write something like:

<%= get_validation_message(@error) %>

answered Dec 9, 2010 at 20:25

nathanvda

50.1k14 gold badges120 silver badges140 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

max Over a year ago

thank you! the script is in app/views/clients/new.html.erb, but it doesnt dynamically render the validation. <%= url_for :controller => 'live_validations', :action => 'validate_client_company' %> is "/live_validations/validate_client_company" and when i navigate to "/live_validations/validate_client_company?company=testnames" it renders the validation correct..

nathanvda Over a year ago

You will need to sent the parameter along. Is it fixed? Or must it come from the input? Which selector is it? You can send variables in the load method from jquery.

yfeldblum · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-09 15:04:06Z

render :action => does not run the associated controller method.

It simply renders the template that Rails would, by default, have associated with the action. That is to say, if the action validate_client_company simply called render without passing any arguments, Rails would look for a template in a folder with the same name as the controller and with a name with the same name as the action. Calling render :action => simply looks for that same template and renders it.

Best guess is that Rails cannot find a template named validate_client_company. I expect that none exists, because the action validate_client_company renders a partial named message instead of rendering a template with the default name for that action.

In the action which renders the script, you need to set up the instance variables and then in the template for that action you need to use the following:

render :partial => 'live_validations/message'

It certainly makes sense to have mini MVC stacks within the larger MVC stack, so that you can run sub-actions within running larger actions. For this scenario, you may wish to look at Cells. However, you cannot do this with Rails by itself.

Fábio Batista · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-09 15:42:46Z

0

You probably want something like this:

<script>
$("#validate_company").live("keyup", function() {
 $("#company_info").load("<%= url_for :controller => 'live_validation', :action => 'validate_client_company' %>");
});
</script>

But the rest of your code is kinda of messed up... Rendering a partial from inside a controller?

answered Dec 9, 2010 at 15:42

Fábio Batista

25.3k3 gold badges58 silver badges70 bronze badges

Comments

max · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-11 12:27:01Z

0

Got it to work!

<script>
  $("#validate_company").live("keyup", function() {
        $("#company_info").load("/live_validations/validate_client_company",{company:$('#validate_company').val()});
  });
</script>

answered Dec 11, 2010 at 12:27

max

1

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Rails3 rendering action from another controller

4 Answers 4

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

4 Answers 4

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related