sinatra helper in external file

Question

I have lot of helpers in my main Sinatra project_name.rb and I want to remove them to the external file, what is the best practice to do that ?

from ./preject_name.rb

   helpers do
     ...#bunch of helpers
   end

to for exapmple ./helpers/something.rb

thank you

Answer 1

Just as you said it yourself:

Move the helpers block into another file and require it where you need.

#helpers.rb
helpers do
...
end

#project_name.rb
require 'path/to/helpers.rb'

Answer 2

The simple and recommended way:

module ApplicationHelper

# methods

end

class Main < Sinatra::Base

  helpers ApplicationHelper

end

Answer 3

Alas, if, like me, you are building a modular Sinatra app, it's a little more complex than simply moving the helpers out into another file.

The only way I got this to work is as follows.

first up in your app (I'll call this my_modular_app.rb)

require 'sinatra/base'
require 'sinatra/some_helpers'

class MyModularApp < Sinatra::Base
  helpers Sinatra::SomeHelpers

  ...

end

and then create the folder structure ./lib/sinatra/ and create some_helpers.rb as follows:

require 'sinatra/base'

module Sinatra
  module SomeHelpers

    def help_me_world
      logger.debug "hello from a helper"
    end

  end

  helpers SomeHelpers

end

doing this you can simply split all your helpers up into multiple files, affording more clarity in larger projects.

Answer 4

It seems the answer @DaveSag offered miss something. Should add a line at the beginning of my_modular_app.rb:

$:.unshift File.expand_path('../lib', __FILE__)  # add ./lib to $LOAD_PATH

require 'sinatra/base'
require 'sinatra/some_helpers' # this line breaks unless line 1 is added.

# more code below...

In addition, if someone prefers a "classical style" like me, the following is for you :)

In app.rb

$:.unshift File.expand_path('../lib', __FILE__)

require 'sinatra'
require 'sinatra/some_helpers'

get '/' do
  hello_world
end

In lib/sinatra/some_helpers.rb

module Sinatra
  module SomeHelper
    def hello_world
      "Hello World from Helper!!"
    end
  end

  helpers SomeHelper
end