How to Handle Constants in Ruby When Using Rails

What is the best way to handle constants in Ruby when using Rails?

You can use an array or hash for this purpose (in your environment.rb):

OPTIONS = ['one', 'two', 'three']
OPTIONS = {:one => 1, :two => 2, :three => 3}

or alternatively an enumeration class, which allows you to enumerate over your constants as well as the keys used to associate them:

class Enumeration
  def Enumeration.add_item(key,value)
    @hash ||= {}
    @hash[key]=value
  end

  def Enumeration.const_missing(key)
    @hash[key]
  end   

  def Enumeration.each
    @hash.each {|key,value| yield(key,value)}
  end

  def Enumeration.values
    @hash.values || []
  end

  def Enumeration.keys
    @hash.keys || []
  end

  def Enumeration.[](key)
    @hash[key]
  end
end

which you can then derive from:

class Values < Enumeration
  self.add_item(:RED, '#f00')
  self.add_item(:GREEN, '#0f0')
  self.add_item(:BLUE, '#00f')
end

and use like this:

Values::RED    => '#f00'
Values::GREEN  => '#0f0'
Values::BLUE   => '#00f'

Values.keys    => [:RED, :GREEN, :BLUE]
Values.values  => ['#f00', '#0f0', '#00f']

constant values in Rails

I believe what you are currently doing is fine; you said the data only pertains to one controller, and therefore that's where it belongs. If it was needed for multiple controllers, or if they were more complex than constant values, other approaches may make sense.

Ruby on Rails: Where to define global constants?

If your model is really "responsible" for the constants you should stick them there. You can create class methods to access them without creating a new object instance:

class Card < ActiveRecord::Base
  def self.colours
    ['white', 'blue']
  end
end

# accessible like this
Card.colours

Alternatively, you can create class variables and an accessor. This is however discouraged as class variables might act kind of surprising with inheritance and in multi-thread environments.

class Card < ActiveRecord::Base
  @@colours = ['white', 'blue'].freeze
  cattr_reader :colours
end

# accessible the same as above
Card.colours

The two options above allow you to change the returned array on each invocation of the accessor method if required. If you have true a truly unchangeable constant, you can also define it on the model class:

class Card < ActiveRecord::Base
  COLOURS = ['white', 'blue'].freeze
end

# accessible as
Card::COLOURS

You could also create global constants which are accessible from everywhere in an initializer like in the following example. This is probably the best place, if your colours are really global and used in more than one model context.

# put this into config/initializers/my_constants.rb
COLOURS = ['white', 'blue'].freeze

# accessible as a top-level constant this time
COLOURS

Note: when we define constants above, often we want to freeze the array. That prevents other code from later (inadvertently) modifying the array by e.g. adding a new element. Once an object is frozen, it can't be changed anymore.

Access model-specific constants in a Rails view

You should access them as following:

Challenge::CLOSED

Since your CLOSED constant is defined within a class, you need to access the constant using the scope resolution operator. So if your view you would check it like:

# challenge/_details.html.erb
<% if @challenge.status == Challenge::CLOSED %>
  Challenge is closed, broheim!
<% end %>

Accessing a class's constants

What you posted should work perfectly:

class Foo
  CONSTANT_NAME = ["a", "b", "c"]
end

Foo::CONSTANT_NAME
# => ["a", "b", "c"]

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