Question

Disclaimer: I’m a rails n00b. I’m playing around with a simple helper function that isn’t doing what I want it to do.

• I have a model called ‘webform’ with a few text fields (name, address, etc)
• I’m trying to use a helper function to test an if statement (i.e. ‘is the :address == ’10’)

• Here’s the helper function

  def webforms_helper
    if :address == 10
      print "Address is 10"
    else
      print "Address is not 10"
    end   
  end
  

• In my ‘show’ view, I have incorporated the helper function <%= webforms_helper %>

• I load the web app, get no errors — though, it doesn’t print out ‘Address is 10’ or ‘Address is not 10’

• I’ve also had no success using puts (and checking the console) instead of print

• Any thoughts? I apologize for the novice question 😉

Answer 1

First, a proper helper would look like this:

module ApplicationHelper
  def myformchecker(ahash)
     if ahash[:address] == '10'
        return 'Address is 10'
     end
  end
end

Then in your controller:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  helper: application
  ...
end

Then in your view:

<%= myformchecker(params) %>

So if the view were rendered in response to a form submit, and the form has the following:

<%= text_field_tag :address %>

And when the user filled out the form and put the string ’10’ as the address, ‘Address is 10’ would be generated in your view.