Question

I have a .js.erb file that renders a Ruby partial. Right now, everything works fine, and the first line is

<%# encoding: utf-8 %>

Later on when I add the line

$("#name").text("Name ▼");

Things still work, but the Unicode comes out as the code, not as the character I wanted. When I replace the above with

$("#name").text("Name " + ▼);

The partial just refuses to render. My Ruby console even lies by saying

  Rendered interface/_tan.erb (5.5ms)
  Rendered interface/tan_complete.js.erb (20.0ms)

Why is this happening?

Answer 1

You appear to be using jQuery. Try this instead:

$("#name").html("Name ▼");

The .text() method sets the innerText property. The .html() method sets the innerHTML property. HTML entities render as plain-text when injected into the innerText property.

As for why $("#name").text("Name " + ▼); fails to render, I’m fairly sure that the & has a special significance in Ruby syntax (though I’m far from an expert) and that the # starts a comment, so the line is likely to be syntactically incorrect, thus causing an error which makes the partial fail to render.