Checking for nil in view in Ruby on Rails

Question

I\'ve been working with Rails for a while now and one thing I find myself constantly doing is checking to see if some attribute or object is nil in my view code before I dis

Answer 1

Your example code remade:

controller code. ( I assume this is ItemsController )

def show
  # This will fail with 404 if item is not found
  # You can config rails to pretty much render anything on Error 404
  @item = Item.find(params[:id])

  # doesn't seem to be used in the view
  # @folders = Folder.find(:all, :order => 'display_order')


  # this is not needed anymore, or should be in the Error 404 handler
  #if @item == nil or @item.folder == nil
  #  redirect_to(root_url) and return
  #end
end

view code, since the controller made sure we have @item

#display the item's attributes here

<%= item_folder_link(@item) %>

helper code:

# display link if the item has a folder
def item_folder_link(item)
  # I assume folder.name should be a non-blank string
  # You should properly validate this in folder model
  link_to( item.folder.name, folder_path(item.folder) ) if item.folder
end

Anyway, I try to keep view very very simple. Usually if I see loops and conditionals in views, I try to refactor them into helpers.