Question

I have a rails 3 app where users select an option from a select input which is stored as an integer. The select input is populated by a :collection with simple_form gem, for a table that I seed. This is working exactly the way that I want.

However, I want to display the name instead of the integer in my views.

Right now I am doing this in the view, which is obviously not a best practice.

<% mfg_num = @product.manufacturer.name %>
<%= "#{ListOfManufacturers.find(mfg_num).name}" %>

So, my question is:

What is the best practice for setting up something so that I don’t need to put this logic in my view? Should it be in the controller? Should in be in the model? And how do I do it?

Answer 1

there’re couple of solutions to this problem, these are:

use instance variable in your controller and use it in the view, smth like

............
@product.manufacturer
@man_name = ListOfManufacturers.find_by_name(@product)
............

use helper method or method in your model

these’re good practice