I have a piece of code that is needed in 2 of my controllers, but not all of them. Where does this method belong? I have read about helpers, but those seem to be for view-related code. Someone proposed the lib-folder, but that seems 'too far away' from the controller logic, i don't need it in views or models. Has someone experience with that sort of problem?
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1 Answer
There are three options, the easiest (though, the most unclean) is the application controller. The other two options are a shared parent controller
class FooController < FooBarParentController
# code here
end
class BarController < FooBarParentController
# code here
end
Usage depends on how related these controllers are.
The final solution is a module
module FooBarModule
extend ActiveSupport::Concern
included do
# class level code
# before_filter ....
end
module ClassMethods
# all class methods here
end
# instance methods here
end
This is where the shared code required is for a handful of ad-hoc controllers, or if you are already using the inheritance above and this code doesn't quite fit into this subset (thus attempting to emulate multiple inheritance).
4 Comments
user573335
thanks for this helpful answer! the last solution seems to me the most flexible, so i think i will try this one. could you explain a little where i should put this code (in a module in the lib-folder?)
Omar Qureshi
I'd personally put it in the controllers folder.
Lachlan Cotter
If it pertains specifically to this application, put it under the app folder (perhaps in a 'modules' subdirectory). The lib folder is more for general purpose utilities that aren't app specific.
user573335
thanks very much, that really helped me. i ended up putting the file with the FooBarModule in the controllers-folder, because as i said it is only controller-related. i could then just 'include FooBarModule' in my controllers (i didn't even need to require it first, as i had thought). Works like a charm!