Rails with backbone-rails: asset helpers (image_path) in EJS files

Question

I have a Rails 3.1 app that uses the codebrew/backbone-rails. In a .jst.ejs template, I would like to include an image, like so:

Answer 1

I can see two ways. Neither are great.

When you say <%%= variable %> then this is rendered by ERB as <%= variable %>, so you could double percent escape everything but the asset_tags and that would survive the trip through one ERB pass on the way to EJS.

If you find that too gross...

How about making a different javascript file, with an ERB extension, that defines your asset paths? And then use the asset pipeline to require that.

So say assets.js.erb defines something like:

MyAssets = {
  'foo': <%= image_path("foo.png") %>,
  ...
}

And then require this somewhere near the top of your manifest. And then reference the globals however that works in EJS.