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HOWTO: Call a nil :local variable from a partial

Posted by Sandro Paganotti in Ruby on Rails - comments are closed

Have you notice that if you try to execute a partial like the following:

# _my_name.rhtml
This is a partial and this is my name: <%=name%>

without calling it with a :name locale you are prompted this nice Exception ?

undefined local variable or method `name' for #<#<Class:0x542ae28>:0x542ad24>

The only way to avoid this exception is to execute a line of code that checks if the variable is nil and, in case of positive answer, it set that variable to nil! I know this could sound quite weird but it’s the only way I found to make thing work.

So, here is the line:

<%
# _my_name.rhtml
name = name.nil? ? false : name
%>

If someone know why this strange behavior happens please let me know.

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