QuirkeyBlogEst. 2005

Lets say you have a User class with your basic fields including prefix, first name, last name, and middle initial. None of these are required fields, though you want to display them a lot in your templates. You find yourself doing this alot:

<%= @user.prefix %> <%= @user.first_name %> <%= @user.middle_initial %> <%= @user.last_name %>

Why? When methods and attributes are indistiguishable. Just add a little diddy to your User class.

def display_name
  display = ""
  [:prefix,:first_name,:middle_initial,:last_name].each do |name|
    display << send(name) << " " unless send(name).nil?
  end
  display.strip
end

Isn't this prettier?

<%= @user.display_name %>

Posted March 27th, 2007 in Development, Rails, Ruby
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