Question

I’ve never used xml builder in my rails 3 app, but need to start.

one of our controller methods is invoked by a remote system, and it returns only xml.

in our foo controller we have

  def return_some_data
    @thename = "JOHN DOE" 
      respond_to do |format|
        format.xml
      end
  end

in our views/foo/return_some_data.xml.erb we have

<Response>
  <Name>The name is <%= @thename %></Name>
</Response>

---

I would like to use xml builder instead of manually creating the xml and using erb to handle variable insertion.

I think the equivalent builder file would look like this?

xml.Response{
  xml.Name(The name is @thename)
}

Also what would I rename the file return_some_data and which folder would I put it in? Also, do I need a ‘require’ or ‘include’ to start using xml builder, or is it a ruby built-in?

Answer 1

the view should have extension .builder eg. views/foo/return_some_data.builder

by naming it .builder, rails automatically creates you an instance of XmlMarkup
also your .builder templates are pure ruby no erb necessary

xml.instruct!
xml.Response do
  xml.Name @name
end