Rails - How to use a Helper Inside a Controller

Question

While I realize you are supposed to use a helper inside a view, I need a helper in my controller as I\'m building a JSON object to return.

It goes a little like this:

Answer 1

One alternative missing from other answers is that you can go the other way around: define your method in your Controller, and then use helper_method to make it also available on views as, you know, a helper method.

For instance:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base

private

  def something_count
    # All other controllers that inherit from ApplicationController will be able to call `something_count`
  end
  # All views will be able to call `something_count` as well
  helper_method :something_count 

end