Question

Everything I read says that view helpers get mixed into views, but which class, specifically do they get mixed into?

References:

1. http://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html#view-helpers
2. Why can private helper methods still be accessed in views?
3. Do helper classes get mixed into the controller?

Answer 1

The controller has a view_context, which is an instance of view_context_class, which is (by default) an anonymous subclass of ActionView::Base created by ActionView::Base.prepare. The helpers are mixed in to these view context classes.

The view context is also the place where the controller instance variables “magically” become instance variables in the view.