Question

I’m trying to wrap my around a task and haven’t found anyone who has address this issue.

I’m created an awards nomination system.

1. Anon user submits nomination
2. Admin user generates a merged letter from template and edits letter
3. Letter text is saved to database to later generate PDF

I read that you can render an ERB text to a variable. This is working great but then I’m stuck with the text because of the Double Render Error.

def generate_letter
@submission = Submission.find(params[:id])
@submission.letter_text = render (:text, :layout => false, :template => 'submissions/generate_letter') and return
@submission.save  
redirect_to @submission
end

Is there a better way to generate this text for the database or a workaround to redirecting? I was trying to avoid keeping my merge template in the code and ERB seems a nice way to handle it.

Answer 1

You need to use render_to_string. This line

@submission.letter_text = render (:text, :layout => false, :template => 'submissions/generate_letter') and return

should be

@submission.letter_text = render_to_string( template: 'submissions/generate_letter.text.erb', layout: false )