SessionsHelper in railstutorial.org: Should helpers be general-purpose modules for code not needed in views?

Question

railstutorial.org has a suggestion which strikes me as a little odd.

It suggests this code:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base         


        

Answer 1

FWIW, I store the current user in the User class:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  cattr_accessor :current
  ...
end

This can be referenced in all 3 MVC tiers; it is set in the controller like so (and likewise on login, of course):

def set_current_user
  User.current = (session[:user_id]) ? User.find_by_id(session[:user_id]) : nil
end

Among other things, this allows me to have audit logs at the ActiveRecord level that capture the current user (when applicable).