Question

I’m trying to write a very simple function that feeds whatever text someone enters into an input field, into a function which searches Twitter and returns some value.

In my home.html.erb file I have this code, but I’m not sure if calling the @tweetArray instance variable which should call my grabTweets function is the right way to go about things.

    <%= form_for(@tweetArray) do |f| %>
    <%= f.text_field :grabTweets %>
    <% end %>

In my pages helper file I have:

  @tweetArray = grabTweets(:grabTweets)

  def grabTweets(mySearch)
    @tweet = Twitter.search( "mySearch +" "[pic] "+" path.com/p/", :rpp => 2, :result_type => "recent").map do |status|
    @tweet = "#{status.text}" #class = string
    urls = URI::extract(@tweet, "http") #returns an array of strings
    end
  end

My page just shows this error undefined method grabTweets for PagesHelper:Module. What do I put in my home.html.erb file to call this code correctly?

Edit:

Updated my code in home.html.erb

    <%= form_for(grabTweets) do |f| %>
    <%= f.text_field :search %>
    <% end %>

Does that make more sense?

And then in my pages controller

@tweetArray = grabTweets(":search")


def grabTweets(mySearch)
    @tweet = Twitter.search( mySearch + "[pic] "+" path.com/p/", :rpp => 2, :result_type => "recent").map do |status|
    @tweet = "#{status.text}" #class = string
    urls = URI::extract(@tweet, "http") #returns an array of strings
    end
  end

I’m still getting an error undefined local variable or method grabTweets in home.html.erb

Answer 1

With a Model

Assuming you have an @tweet object:

<%= form_for(@tweet) do |f| %>
  <%= f.text_field :search %>
<% end %>

Then, depending on how you have your routes set up, when a user submits the form it will hit your find_tweets action. You could have a route set up for /tweets that hits the find_tweets action (call it what you like).

In your controller you’d have:

def find_tweets
  @tweets = Twitter.search( params[:tweet][:search] + "[pic] "+" path.com/p/", :rpp => 2, :result_type => "recent").map do |status|
    tweet = "#{status.text}" #class = string
    urls = URI::extract(@tweet, "http") #returns an array of strings

    { 
      :tweet => tweet,
      :urls => urls
    }
  end

  @tweets
end

That should get you an @tweets that would an array of hashes with a tweet and urls. I haven’t tested any of this but I hope it’ll point you in the right direction.

Without a Model

To do this without a model you can use form_tag.

<%= form_tag '/tweets/find_tweets' do %>
  <%= text_field_tag "search" %>
<% end %>

Your controller wouldn’t change much, but you’d likely access your search params using params[:search] instead.