I am building a command line app that will generate metadata files amongst other things. I have a series of values that I want included, and I would like to insert those values into json format and than write it to a .txt file.
The complicated part (to me at least) is some of the values are dynamic (i.e. they may change everytime a file is created), other parts of the json file will need to be static. Is there any sort of templating that may help with this? (json erb)
If I were to use a json erb template, how would I write the result of the template (after it has been populated) to a txt file since this is not a rails app and I thus would not be calling the view.
Thank you in advance for any help.
It seems like two things could be helpful to you, but your question is pretty open ended ...
First, if your json templates are complex (static and dynamic parts?) I suggest you look at a tool like RABL ...
https://github.com/nesquena/rabl
There is a railscast on RABL here:
http://railscasts.com/episodes/322-rabl
RABL lets you create templates for generating custom JSON output.
Regarding writing to a file, you may or may not need to call the controller first. But the flow would be something like:
#sample_controller.rb
require 'json'
def get_sample
#x = {:a => "apple", :b => "baker"}
render json: #x
end
You can call the controller and get the rendered json.
z = get_sample
File.open(yourfile, 'w') { |file| file.write(z) }
Related
For testing purposes, I'd like to serialize an axlsx spreadsheet to a string. The axlsx documentation indicates it is possible to "Output to file or StringIO". But I haven't found documentation or a code sample that explains how to output to a StringIO. How is it done?
From the code:
# Serialize to a stream
s = package.to_stream()
File.open('example_streamed.xlsx', 'w') { |f| f.write(s.read) }
In the end, an [xlsx] file is zip archive containing multiple xml files and other assets. You can use Package#to_stream to generate an IO stream for streaming purposes, but viewing that archive as a string is probably not what you are looking to do.
If you are just looking to investigate the xml for a specific Worksheet, you can use Worksheet#to_xml_string which will return a String object with all the goodies in there. (That is how worksheet validation works, we parse that XML and validate it against the schema for the object)
Hope this help!
If I render html I get html to the browser which works great. However, how can I get a route's response (the html) when being called in a module or class.
I need to do this because I'm sending documents to DocRaptor and rather than store the markup/html in a db column I would like to instead store record IDs and create the markup when the job executes.
A possible solution is using Ruby's HTTP library, Httparty or wget or something and open up the route and use the response.body. Before doing so I thought I'd ask around.
Thanks!
-- Update --
Here's something like what I ended up going with:
Quick tip - in case anyone does this and need their helper methods you need to extend AV with ApplicationHelper:
Here's something like what I ended up doing:
av = ActionView::Base.new()
av.view_paths = ActionController::Base.view_paths
av.extend ApplicationHelper #or any other helpers your template may need
body = av.render(:template => "orders/receipt.html.erb",:locals => {:order => order})
Link:
http://www.rigelgroupllc.com/blog/2011/09/22/render-rails3-views-outside-of-your-controllers/
check this question out, it contains the code probably want in an answer:
Rails 3 > Rendering views in rake task
I'm trying to create a haml template that uses some data from my ruby app to fill in some content. Is it possible to pass arguments into haml to make it render correctly? Here's how I'm getting my haml template and rendering it:
template = File.open('path/to/template.haml')
html = Haml::Engine.new(template.read).render
So, is it possible to pass objects from the local Ruby script into the template file so that they the page is rendered correctly? Or, can I have the haml file pull in objects?
If this doesn't work, my only other idea is building up the template as a local string which seems more tedious to me. So, is there a different coding pattern that is more efficient for this job?
Yes,
Check the docs:
http://haml.info/docs/yardoc/Haml/Engine.html#render-instance_method
(String) render(scope = Object.new, locals = {}, &block)
pass them as locals
Here is an example of how to do it using ruby:
template = File.read('path/to/template.haml')
html = Haml::Engine.new(template).render(Object.new, :my_object => my_object)
I am writing a helper and I need to get a rendered file as String.
I see that the method that I need exists in the middleman's library: http://rubydoc.info/github/middleman/middleman/Middleman/CoreExtensions/Rendering/InstanceMethods#render_individual_file-instance_method
How do I call this function from my helper class?
I tried:
require "middleman-core/lib/middleman-core/core_extensions/rendering.rb"
...
puts Middleman::CoreExtensions::Rendering::InstanceMethods.render_individual_file(filepath)
But it does not seem to find the file, any idea?
I'm not sure 3.0 beta is quite ready for primetime.
That said, it does sound like the partial method is what you're looking for.
Unless I'm missing something, the Middleman method seems like an overly-complex solution. For one of my sites I wanted to load entire text files into my templates, so I wrote this helper:
# Shortcut for loading raw text files. Obviously assumes that given file is in a valid format.
# #return [String] File contents
def load_textfile(filename)
File.read filename.to_s
end
Also, you should clarify if you are intending to use this within a template, or within Ruby code. It's not clear to me based on your question.
Here is an example of how one would use above helper:
Currently of note, Middleman is in the process of transitioning to version 4, and the conventions for loading helpers will change. The most straightforward way to define a helper is within a helper block in your config.rb file, as follows:
helpers do
# Define helper functions here to make them available in templates
end
I use Slim for templating. It really is the best. In slim you would appply helper as thus:
= load_textfile 'path'
p You can embed helper output in your page with interpolation, too: #{load_textfile 'path'}
I really don’t need the overhead of Rails for my very small project, so I’m trying to achieve this just using just plain Ruby and HAML.
I want to include another HAML file inside my HAML template. But I haven’t found a good—or really usable—way of doing this.
For example, I have these two HAML files:
documents.haml
%html
%body
= include(menu.haml) body
%article …
menu.haml
%ul
%li
%a whatever …
Include is obviously not the way to go here. But it does a nice job describing what I’m trying to achieve in this example.
I totally recommend the Tilt gem for these things. It provides a standard interface for rendering many different template langages with the same API, lets you set custom scope and locals, lets you use yield, and is robust and fast. Sinatra is using it for templates.
Example:
require 'haml'
require 'tilt'
template = Tilt.new('path/to/file.haml')
# => #<Tilt::HAMLTemplate #file="path/to/file.haml" ...>
layout = Tilt.new('path/to/layout.haml')
output = layout.render { template.render }
This lets you yield inside the layout to get the rendered template, just like Rails. As for partials, David already described a simple and nice way to go.
But actually, if what you're writing is going to be served over HTTP, i suggest you take a look at Sinatra, which already provides templating, and has the simplest request routing you could imagine.
I've done this before, just for a quick-and-dirty template producer. The easiest way is to just render the HAML inside the parent object:
%p some haml that's interesting
= Haml::Engine.new('%p this is a test').render
%p some more template
You'll more than likely want to build some methods to make this easier--a couple of helper methods. Maybe you write one called render_file that takes a filename as an argument. That method might look something like:
def render_file(filename)
contents = File.read(filename)
Haml::Engine.new(contents).render
end
Then, your template would look more like:
%p some template
= render_file('some_filename.haml')
%p more template
Note, you will probably need to pass self to the original Haml::Engine render so that it knows how to find your render_file method.
I've had great success just using the instructions posted by David Richards in a concatenated way, without variables, like this:
= Haml::Engine.new(File.read('/Volumes/Project/file_to_include.haml')).render
There's obviously a more elegant way. But for someone who just wants to include one or two files, this should work nicely. It's a drawback that all base files using these includes have to be recompiled after some changes to the latter. It might be worthwile to just use php include if the environment allows that.
def render_file(filename)
contents = File.read('views/'+filename)
Haml::Engine.new(contents).render
end
(Adding this semi-redundant answer to show how one might incorporate the techniques from other answers.)
Include something like this in your setup code to monkey-patch the Haml library.
module Haml::Helpers
def render_haml(filename)
contents = File.read(Rails.root.join("app", "assets", "templates", filename))
Haml::Engine.new(contents).render
end
end
Then in your Haml file
.foo
= render_haml('partial.haml')
.bar
Obviously this is a Rails-ish example (because I wanted to use HAML in my asset pipeline instead of as views)... You will want to replace Rails.root.join(...) with a way to find filename in your project's templates or partials directory.