[PATCH] .html.erb not working for partials?

It's added, but I'm probably going to remove it. It makes it impossible to reuse the partial in your RJS actions too.

Can I get some clarification on this? Currently .html.erb partials are found from an erb procesing context, but not from an RJS action. Looks like page.insert_html(etc) looks for .js.html partials, as it's running from an rjs context, so renaming to straight .erb works as a fallback.

Those methods are specifically for dealing with html though, so can't the render reflect this? What's the aim regarding the removal mentioned, and where will this leave the naming strategy?

Oops, I meant page.insert_html looks for .js.erb

You can hard code a partial name with render though:

render :partial => 'foo.html.erb'

However, someone else had a good use case for keeping the format in partials, so it looks like it's staying for now.

Thanks for update.

Regarding hard coding, I'd tried that, but ran into invalid variable name problems when partial names including format and builder reach partials.add_object_to_local_assigns!

controller.instance_variable_get("@#{partial_name}")

Attached is a patch that makes :html the default template_format for all render :partial calls. The code is not pretty and it breaks some behaviour (hence the changed test) but it does solve this problem.

As far as I know, you can have partials in other template renderers, such as RXML, so this may not always be appropriate.

Here's the main issue as I understand it. There are 2 ways that ActionView will set your template format. Either from params[:format], or from the respond_to block.

respond_to do |format|
  format.html # show.html.erb
  format.js # show.js.rjs
end

Now, the problem comes up when you try to use an html erb template in your ajax action. It's looking for *.js.erb now. For now, the solution is to just name it *.erb and leave the format out altogether. But, a lot of folks I've talked to ran into this problem. Obviously it's violating some least surprise principle.

If you come up with a good solution so it'll work as expected, please do send in a patch. If you come across some edge case that's breaking, a patch, or at least a failing test case would be great. Thanks.

Worth nothing that DHH's RailsConf 2007 keynote slides also makes the assumption that partial in a format.js context should render the .html.erb template. See page 13.

Snippet:

format.js
  render(:update) do |page|
    # "people/_person.html.erb"
    page[:people].insert_html :top, :partial => person
    
    # $('person_1')
    page[person].visual_effect(:highlight)
  end
end

Nabbing that example, and in response to the "least surprise" principle mentioned by technoweenie, I think the method name says it all. It's not insert_erb or insert_js after all - I'm definitely expecting to insert html.

# "people/_person.html.erb"
page[:people].insert_html :top, :partial => person

Before I wrote the current patch I made one that changes the render call in JavaScriptGenerator, but the problem is wider than that. I would rather fix it properly, but I'll upload the patch in a bit, for reference.

Also, comment 5 (the instance variable thing) is still an issue, I've got a patch for that too.

Okay, finally. The patch I just sent allows you to use dots in partial names, which fixes this:

render :partial => 'foo.html.erb' 

but still not this:

render :partial => 'foo'

Even after trying several options, I'm not quite sure how to fix the latter. If someone has a good idea I would be willing to implement it, so Please Do Comment.

(In [7158]) Allow you to render views with periods in the name. Closes #8076 [norbert]