How could I render to a string a JSON representation of a JBuilder view?

Question

I\'m using JBuilder as to return some JSON. I have a index.json.jbuilder that generates the data, and I need to render it to a string. However, I\'m not sure ho

Answer 1

If you're doing this in the controller, a much simpler option is to try to the move the code into the view being rendered by the controller.

I described this here: https://github.com/shakacode/react-webpack-rails-tutorial/blob/master/docs/jbuilder.md

basically you can call render in the view, and you're done. Like this:

<%= react_component('App', render(template: "/comments/index.json.jbuilder"),
    generator_function: true, prerender: true) %>

Here's the notes on what happens if you want to pass the data from the controller to the view:

class PagesController < ApplicationController
  def index
    @comments = Comment.all

    # NOTE: The below notes apply if you want to set the value of the props in the controller, as
    # compared to he view. However, it's more convenient to use Jbuilder from the view. See
    # app/views/pages/index.html.erb:20
    #
    #  <%= react_component('App', render(template: "/comments/index.json.jbuilder"),
    #     generator_function: true, prerender: true) %>
    #
    #
    # NOTE: this could be an alternate syntax if you wanted to pass comments as a variable to a partial
    # @comments_json_sting = render_to_string(partial: "/comments/comments.json.jbuilder",
    #                                         locals: { comments: Comment.all }, format: :json)
    # NOTE: @comments is used by the render_to_string call
    # @comments_json_string = render_to_string("/comments/index.json.jbuilder")
    # NOTE: It's CRITICAL to call respond_to after calling render_to_string, or else Rails will
    # not render the HTML version of the index page properly. (not a problem if you do this in the view)
    # respond_to do |format|
    #   format.html
    # end
  end
end