Question

I am starting to learn ruby on rails, like it so far. But I have a hard time wrapping my head around those flash-sessions.

I would rather have it working something like:

flash[:alert] << "first alert message" 
flash[:alert] << "second alert message"

But, it doesn’t work (edit: since flash[:alert] isn’t an array). A solution would be to initiate flash[:alert] as an empty array in some kind of construct, i tried it in a before_filter but didn’t get it to work.

Any ideas?

Edit:
As I’ve written in some comments. What i am trying to do is find a place to convert flash[:alert] to an array. In some sort of construct. If i do it before i call flash[:alert] i have to know when i will be doing it the first time so i won’t overwrite anything I allready have in it.

Answer 1

You could write a helper method in your application controller. For example, like this:

class ApplicationController

  def add_to_flash_array key, value
    # set empty array as default value
    flash[key] ||= [] 

    if flash[key].is_a? Array
      flash[key] << value
    else # somebody set a value from underneath this method, enter panic mode
      raise "flash['#{key}'] is not an array!"
    end
  end
end

# usage

add_to_flash_array :alert, 'Message 1'
add_to_flash_array :alert, 'Message 2'

Then in your view loop over flash[:alert] and build your markup.