Question

I know I could define instance variables e.g:

def user_register(username, email)
  @username = username
  @email = email

  mail(:to => email, :subject => "Welcome!", :template_name => "reg_#{I18n.locale}")
end

But, is there a way to use local variables instead, just like passing :locals to partials?

Answer 1

All options available in the mail method can be found at http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionMailer/Base.html#method-i-mail.

We know that render has a :locals option. However we can see that there is no :locals option available for mail. Therefore, no, there is no better way than to use instance variables (unless you want to use something hideous like globals or persistent database objects – don’t do this).

Instance variables are what you are meant to use.