Question

I am outfitting a rails 3 app (version 3.0.9) to use AJAX and jQuery to fluidly handle user posts. I would like for a #users_info div to be refreshed following the post submission. I can get this to work, but the contents of the div don’t render properly. Specifically, the jquery code in create.js.erb:

 $("#right_bar").html(
'<%= escape_javascript(render :partial => 'shared/user_info') %>'
 );

Results in the user info div outputting:

 <div id=user_info> <h1>    
 <a href=/users/101>Example Usera> h1>  
 46 posts <br>  
 4 discussions <br> 
 Following 2 topics <br>    
 Joined 8 days ago.div>

Note how the escape_javascript function removes all leading angle brackets on end tags in html ( becomes a>, become h1>). How can I force the escape_javascript to avoid doing so? I think this is all the relevant code, but can post more if needed.

UPDATE

I was wondering if maybe using to_json would be part of the solution. the code:

<%= escape_javascript((render :partial => ‘shared/user_info’).to_json) %>

results in the html tags not being destroyed. However, i don’t know how to convert back from json to output the desired html. Just thought this might be the right start, but i’m not sure how to finish it

Answer 1

I found a solution. just wrap the contents of escape_javascript(contents) in escape_javascript(“#{}”).

 $("#right_bar").html(
'<%= (escape_javascript("#{(render :partial => 'shared/user_info')}")).html_safe %>'
 );

I added the html_safe at the end so that rails would not make the angle brackets literal. Now the html tags go through properly, and everything renders properly in the browser.