How do I make a ruby variable accessible to a javascript file? - javascript

I have two variables, <%= #user.lat %> and <%= #user.lng %>
These variables change depending on the user whose logged into my system - it's the address the user gave when registering with my app.
In a scripts.js file I've been trying to define them, so my Google map can show with the user's latitude and longitude.
But
function initialize_google_maps() {
var currentlatlng = new google.maps.LatLng(<%= #user.lat %>, <%= #user.lng %>);
etc, etc doesn't work, because it can't understand my ruby code.
I tried defining them at the top of the scripts.js file like:
var map_latitude = "<%= #user.lat %>";
var map_longitude = "<%= #user.lng %>";
and then using:
function initialize_google_maps() {
var currentlatlng = new google.maps.LatLng(map_latitude, map_longitude);
but I've learnt that you just can't put ruby in a js file. I did try renaming it to scripts.js.erb but that didn't work either.
So, how can I define <%= #user.lat %> and <%= #user.lng %> so they'll be recognised by my scripts.js file, and show up in my maps? I did try this answer here, creating a partial, but it didn't work for me. Maybe I was doing it wrong.
Please note: I can't simply put the code and maps function between script tags in a html.erb file because I'm using some ajax, and things get messed up - the ruby variables need to be recognised by the js file. Thanks.

It's possible to use Ruby in JavaScript file, but it's not recommended so I will not explain how.
To answer your question, you can just put the variable in your HTML attribute:
<div id="foo" data-lat="<%= #user.lat %>">Books are coming soon!</div>
And then extract it with JavaScript:
var lat = $("#foo").data("lat");

http://railscasts.com/episodes/324-passing-data-to-javascript will get you going in the right direction.

I think unobtrusive javascript is probably a good way to do this:
http://railscasts.com/episodes/205-unobtrusive-javascript

As the others suggested, you should aim for unobtrusive javascript.
Yet, you might want to use embedded javascript code in a js response for a view, for example. In this cases, you should use the erb extension in your javascript files, so the correct is.js.erb.

Related

eex syntax or Phoenix code inside js file

Inside tag in my index.html.eex i can use this syntax to retrive text.
<%= gettext "Login failed!"%>
Now i have a js file used for validating fields, and i load this file as a script inside index.html.eex.
Everything works fine but i need to use gettext for Phoenix text translation inside the js file. I know that <%= %> syntax won't compile outside .eex files, however i refuse to put all my validation logic code inside a in index.html.eex
What can i do to get phoenix code inside a js file?
You can store the translations in a variable in index.html.eex and then access it from the JS files. Here's an example:
Add this to the top of index.html.eex:
<script>
var Translations = {
"login_failed": <%= raw Poison.encode!(gettext("Login failed!")) %>,
};
</script>
Now in your JS file, do:
console.log(Translations.login_failed)
A better way would be to create a list of such translations and inject them in your layout file:
<script>
var Translations = {
"login_failed": <%= raw Poison.encode!(gettext("Login failed!")) %>,
"some_other_error": <%= raw Poison.encode!(gettext("Some other error!")) %>,
};
</script>
This way all translations will be available in app.js.
Why raw and Poison.encode!?
Simply doing "<%= thing %>" or '<%= thing %>' will break if thing contains quotes or newlines (and probably some other special characters). Poison.encode! will convert the value into valid JSON (which is also valid JS) and raw will ensure this value is not double escaped.

in rails I'm sending a var to view and but in js file is nil

I'm sending a var in rails to use it in the view, I have a js file name charts.js.erb that is called and I need to use the var in that js file but is nil
in my controller a have the method
def index
#asd = 'hellow'
end
in my view i can do
.div= #asd
but in my javascript file
alert('<%= #asd %>');
#asd var is nil, i've tested using other ruby code an works, but the vars doesn't work
That's not how ERB works with JavaScript. The JS files are generated before runtime, so they do not have access to dynamic server values like that.
The pattern that I usually follow is to place the server-generated value somewhere in the DOM for the JS to pick up.
<div id="asd" data-asd="<%= #asd %>">
Then if you're using jQuery, for example:
var asd = $('#asd').data('asd');

Rails 4: Passing variables to javascript

I've tried numerous methods and followed Ryan Bates' guide but no matter what I do I still get undefined.
application.html.erb
<body>
<%= content_tag :div, id: 'trackers', data: {trackers: User.count} do %>
<% end %>
</body
application.js.erb
var datadump = ($('#trackers').data('trackers'))
console.log(datadump)
//returns undefined in console
Viewing page source I can see the variable
<div data-trackers="2" id="trackers">
I'm passing User.count for now just to keep it simple but I'll need to be passing #trackers_count which is instantiated in a before_action in the application controller. I should be able to sort that out though once I figure out the problem here. Any suggestions?
UPDATE - I've simplified all variables down to just trackers, instead of trackers_count to prevent any errors from syntax and updated code here to reflect that.
ANSWER UPDATE - I selected the correct answer because if you want to pass any variables ASIDE FROM CURRENT_USER those methods worked perfectly. However, you can't access anything with current_user in JS because it loads before the window, so it can't know who the current_user is. It's a real pain but I just did it the long way and accessed the info I need through passing in json and an ajax requests.
I used to do:
var my_var = <%= User.count %>
console.log(my_var)
If it is an integer this works just fine.
If, however, you want to pass objects, then use:
var my_var = JSON.parse(('<%= (#Users.count) == 0 ? "[]" : Users.first(10).to_json %>')
console.log(JSON.stringify(my_var))
You forgot about document ready. Try:
$(function(){
var datadump = ($('#trackers').data('trackers'));
console.log(datadump)
});
Or for provide data from Rails to JS use Gon gem https://github.com/gazay/gon
Stumbled here from google. In my case, I was trying to pass an array of objects to a js.erb, which triggered an event a front end component listened to. For anyone from google, I solved this issue by doing the following:
In my controller.rb:
#payload = []
array.each do |a|
temp = {
foo: a.id,
bar: a.relation.relation
}
#payload << temp
end
in my js.erb:
$(document).trigger('event', { data: <%= #payload.to_json.html_safe %> })
in my component.js:
$(document).on('event', (e, data) => {
console.log(data) //should be array of objects in proper format
})
Hope this helps someone!
This could help you.
For me, I wanted to turn this array
#dates = ["2018-12-24", "2018-12-25", "2018-12-26", "2018-12-27", "2018-12-28"]
into a variable in Javascript. I tried the basic:
var dates = <%= #dates.join(", ") %>
alert(my_var)
This alerted this exact text:
1995
I have no clue why.
Since it wasn't working I tried Guru's solutions up there by copying and pasting, but it was worse now I had an error coming up in my code. Finally I got Guru's solution to work like this:
(the print embedded ruby open and close worked outside the JSON.parse() and there was a missing ")" )
var dates = <%= JSON.parse(#dates.join(", ").to_json)%>
alert(dates)
But even though it didn't crash, want to guess what it alerted?
Yeap, you guessed it:
1995
So I gave up and I used a work around:
In my view edit.html.erb
<div class="dates"><%= #dates.join(", ") %></div>
<script>
var dates = $(".dates").text()
alert(dates)
$(".datepicker").val(dates)
</script>
That allowed me to feed the variable, therefore alert the correct data and set the Datepicker's input with the correct information. I'm still bugged for not being able to solve the hole 1995 problem. If someone could be so kind as to explain, I would really appreciate it. Hope this helps and have a great day!

Passing javascript variable into erb tag

I've been looking into how to use a javascript variable within erb <% %> tags. This will have to be done via AJAX (see How to pass a javascript variable into a erb code in a js view?). I'm quite new to JS and especially new to AJAX and finding an example of this in action would be awesome.
Consider the following simple scenario where all that is needed to be passed from the JS to the ERB is a simple bit of text:
HTML:
<input id="example-input" type="text">
$(function() {
$('input#example-input').keyup(function(e) {
if(e.keyCode == 13){
var input = $('input#example-input').val();
<% puts input.upcase %>
}
}
});
Notice that the input will not be defined within the erb tags, and hence this will throw an error.
I believe you're assuming that the line <% puts input.upcase %> will execute ruby code after your javascript line var input = $('input#example-input').val();. If that is what you were thinking, this is incorrect. In the example you've given:
The <% puts input.upcase %> gets executed when the page loads.
input in <% puts input.upcase %> is a ruby variable
input in var input = $('input#example-input').val(); is a javascript variable
If you had a variable that you set on the server side, you could say something like this in your javascript:
var my_js_var = '<%= a_str_in_ruby %>';
and that would work fine for intializing a variable on the javascript side.
However since you want to request data from the client side (aka javascript) to your server side (to be handled by rails controller), what you should be doing is submitting an ajax request. There's a section in the rails documentation that contains examples, and a good railscasts episode (if you're a paying member).

Include a Coffeescript file with ERB in a view

This is giving me a major headache...
So I have an app which requires a sidebar that lists various information to do with a user's player. One section of this sidebar is a friends list. Now, when Player A sends a friend request to Player B, the request should be automatically logged in B's sidebar, and I intend to use WebSockets to do this.
Here is my cp.js.coffe.erb file (there's only a few snippets of ERB at the moment; there will be loads more and I rather get this working first):
$ ->
$("#cp").accordion()
if `"WebSocket" in window`
socket = new WebSocket("ws://localhost:8080")
socket.onopen = =>
console.log("Connection Open")
init = {
sender: "cp"
action: "init"
user: <%= #user.id %>
token: <%= cookies["remember_token"] %>
}
socket.send(init.to_json)
socket.onerror = (e)=>
console.log(e)
socket.onclose = =>
console.log("Closed")
socket.onmessage = (m)=>
console.log("Recieved: #{m.data}")
msg = m.data.JSON.parse
switch msg.action
when "ret_init"
when "friend_udt"
refreshFriend()
refreshFriend() ->
html = "<%= j render 'layouts/friends' %>"
$('#friends').empty()
$('#friends').add(html)
Theoretically, the code itself works fine, the problem being that Rails doesn't let you use ERB in the assets pipeline, and so this file has to sit in app/views/layouts.the file cannot access the variables declared within a controller or use the render method (or most other ERB methods).
Here's the thing: I can't include said file in my application.html.erb file, and I looked into requesting the file with AJAX, but from my understanding that will immediately execute the Javascript once and once only, and I need the methods in this to be constantly available to update the sidebar.
Is there any way of including this file so that it works with the ERB and the CoffeScript so that it would be continuously avaliable to the page? Am I misunderstanding the whole AJAX requesting method?
Thanks #nzifnab for your help with the JS. Now my friends partial looks like this:
<ul id="friendlist">
<% if Relation.find_by(owner: #user.id, type: "freq") != nil %>
<% Relation.find_by(owner: #user.id, type: "freq").each do |r| %>
<li class="friend-request-cp"><%= link_to "/#{User.find(r.character).name}" %></li>
<% end %>
<% end %>
<% if Relation.find_by(owner: #user.id, type: "friend") != nil %>
<% Relation.find_by(owner: #user.id, type: "friend").each do |r| %>
<li class="friend-cp"><%= link_to "/#{User.find(r.character).name}" %></li>
<% end %>
<% end %>
</ul>
I need to apply two different styles to each item, hence why I'm using the ERB here. This works fine, as it's loaded when the page is first navigated to, but my code was supposed to re-render that partial every time a notification comes through of any new interactions. It would then repopulate the list using the data from the database again. Is there a more efficient way of doing this? Can I still do this with the hamlcoffeeassets gem you showed me?
Slight tangent ensues:
By the way, I'm using Ruby 2.0.0-p247 and Rails 4 on Windows 7. I felt the need to include that because of some major compatibility issues with gems that are much different from Ubuntu. I had to move from Ubuntu to Windows because updating from 13.04 to 13.10 broke everything Ruby Gem on that OS. I don't have tome to find a fix: I literally have only four days to get this app built.
You can kinda use erb in the asset pipeline, but you have to remember that it only gets rendered ONCE, EVER, and not once for every user and so even if there was an #user variable (which there won't be), it would never change. You can use erb in your coffee file for things like route paths and environment variables, but not for things like user-specific config and dynamic changes to the JS. It's bad practice anyway.
What you should really do is use a javascript library to read cookies instead of trying to do it with rails (This will give you access to some of the things you appear to be trying to do). And when you need more dynamic behavior you should render data-attributes or other values into the html DOM itself and use the javascript to read that.
Take a look at this cookie library: https://github.com/carhartl/jquery-cookie
There's many others to look at via a quick google search.
socket.onopen = =>
console.log("Connection Open")
init = {
sender: "cp"
action: "init"
user: $.cookie('user_id')
token: $.cookie('remember_token')
}
There are a couple of ways to render new markup for your view using JS. One way is to use js templates. I'm a big fan of the hamlcoffeeassets library here: https://github.com/netzpirat/haml_coffee_assets Although it uses haml for the view, and not ERB. There are ERB variants as well.
You would add some markup to app/assets/templates/friend.jst.hamlc like so:
%p This is my friend markup #{#friend.name}
And then you can render it from your JS like this:
$('#friends').append(JST['templates/friend'](friend: {name: 'Bob'}))
Which will append the markup from your template with the values you've passed interpolated in. In my example you'd end up with this markup inside your #friends container:
<p>This is my friend markup Bob</p>
Alternatively you can render the partial you want via rails into your JSON response as just a string, and then insert that into your document...
So your JS might look something like this:
socket.onmessage = (m)=>
console.log("Recieved: #{m.data}")
msg = m.data.JSON.parse
switch msg.action
when "ret_init"
when "friend_udt"
refreshFriend(msg.friendHTML)
refreshFriend(html) ->
$('#friends').html(html)
UPDATE
In reference to your ERB question... First of all your partial is incredibly inefficient making similar calls to the database four times every time you render it. haml_coffee_assets is for use with the haml markup language (which I prefer over ERB), if you want ERB then use eco instead: https://github.com/sstephenson/eco
If you want to render this in the JS, then you need to send this "friend relation" data as JSON through the notification data response, you do not have access to active record OR any controller methods or instance variables when rendering javascript partials - they don't hit back to the server, they only use what is accessible by your javascript at the time.
This should really go to app/assets/javascripts/cp.js.coffee.erb, you can use erb in the asset pipeline just fine (see here) Make sure you are spelling the coffee extension right, though!
Doing this, you should be able to call this via ajax without problems, the path would be /assets/cp.js.
try this gem: 'coffeebeans'
name your coffee file as "some_file.html.erb"
<%= coffeescript_tag_do %>
# your coffee script here ...
<% end %>
in another erb file:
<%= render file: '.../some_file' %>

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