Question

Suppose I have some logic in a base controller to pass information to the view to build something like a breadcrumb:

class ContextAwareController < ApplicationController

  after_filter :build_breadcrumb

  def build_breadcumb
    #...
  end
end

I want this build_breadcrumb method to run after the main controller logic, but before the view is rendered.

The above code runs too late, but a before_filter would be too early.

Can anybody suggest a way to accomplish this without explicitly calling build_breadcumb at the end of each of the actions in the child controllers?

Thanks

Answer 1

I believe rendering starts when render is called, and there’s no default way to defer it. Here’s one thing you could do:

filters are applied in the same order declared. So make a second after-filter that calls render with an array args stored in a class variable. Then anywhere you would normally call render, set the variable.