How to Return Multiple Tags from a Rails Helper

What is the best way to return multiple tags from a Rails Helper?

There are several ways to do this.

Remember that the existing rails helpers like link_to, etc, just output strings. You can concatenate the strings together and return that (which is what I do most of the time, if things are simple).

EG:

link_to( "something", something_path ) +  #NOTE THE PLUS FOR STRING CONCAT
  form.hidden_field('something'.tableize, :value=>'something')

If you're doing things which are more complicated, you could just put that code in a partial, and have your helper call render :partial.

If you're doing more complicated stuff than even that, then you may want to look at errtheblog's block_to_partial helper, which is pretty cool

How to return multiple values from a Rails helper method

Concatenate the strings. The return value of the block will be the last line returned; you must concatenate the return values of the two link_to calls.

  def action_buttons(user)
    case current_user.friendship_status(user)
    # ...
    when "requested"
      link_to("Accept", ...) +
      link_to("Decline", ...)
      # ...
    end
  end

Rails Return multiple content_tags from Helper module

Use #concat:

http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/TextHelper.html#method-i-concat

this thread can be helpful:

rails, How to build table in helper using content_tag?

Rails 4: How to render a method with multiple returns

So, a helper method that is supposed to return something to render on a page, should return a string, not an array of multiple values.

You should decide yourself how you want the multiple values to display. How do you want them to display? Maybe just separated by a comma? Okay, so format it like that yourself inside the helper method:

  ...
  return "#{savings}, #{num}"
end

updated answer for updated question

Update: Changed the return method:

return "<b>#{savings}€</b> en #{num}"

How i can render the html bold tag?

I'd do this:

 def render_savings_for(savings, num)
    safe_join(
       content_tag("b", "#{savings}€"),
       " en ",
       num
    )
 end

Writing your own html-rendering helpers can look a bit confusing, but there are really just a few simple concepts around html safety to understand. I've previously tried to explain some of them here: https://bibwild.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/you-never-want-to-call-html_safe-in-a-rails-template/

Another alternative would be using a view partial instead of a helper method, which wouldn't require you to pay attention to html_safety tricks it would just take care of it for you, but for something this simple I think a helper method is simpler.

Next, you're going to start asking about i18n... make a new question! :)

Using multiple content_tag in one method in Rails

It's a weird quirk of content_tag but if you nest them you need to use a concat on each return in the inner tags. Otherwise, you just get the last returned string and the inner tags just disappear into the ether. Sadly, in my experience, I've found complex nesting isn't worth the effort of moving into a helper method.

Perhaps, a better approach would be to DRY up the html with a decorator pattern, rails partials, or using something like the cells gem.

each ... do returns an array when used in a helper method?

As Marek mentioned in comments each do what it should do. You might want your method be like this:

def show_calendar
  months = %w(Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec)

  ul_body = months.map { |month| custom_tag(string) }
  safe_join(ul_body, "<br />")
end

private

def custom_tag(string)
  %(<li><span class="underlayer"></span><a href="#"> #{string} </a></li>)
end

Rails helper to return li for each category actually returning hash of categories

The each function is returning all the categories. So change the each method to map instead.

Unable to put two content_tags in a single helper method?

Add + between 2 content_tag() method:

def my_test
  content_tag(:p, "One") + \
  content_tag(:p, "Two")
end

The Ruby returns only a last expression from the method. To return all desired html you should add one to another.

Return Array in a helper method

You can.

Use find_all_by_parent_id instead.

And you don't need the second line.

The following is enough.

def childrenOf(a)
  @children  = Post.find_all_by_parent_id(a.id)        
end

---

Related Topics