Rails Decorators

This gem makes it easy to apply the decorator pattern to the models in a Rails application.

Why use decorators?

Helpers, as they're commonly used, are a bit odd. In both Ruby and Rails we approach everything from an Object-Oriented perspective, then with helpers we get procedural.

The job of a helper is to take in data or a data object and output presentation-ready results. We can do that job in an OO fashion with a decorator.

In general, a decorator wraps an object with presentation-related accessor methods. For instance, if you had an Article object, then a decorator might add instance methods like .formatted_published_at or .formatted_title that output actual HTML.

How is it implemented?

To implement the pattern in Rails we can:

  1. Write a wrapper class with the decoration methods
  2. Wrap the data object
  3. Utilize those methods within our view layer

How do you utilize this gem in your application?

Here are the steps to utilizing this gem:

Add the dependency to your Gemfile:

gem "rails_decorators"

Run bundle:

bundle

Create a decorator for your model (ex: Article)

rails generate decorator:model Article

Open the decorator model (ex: app/decorators/article_decorator.rb)

Add your new formatting methods as normal instance or class methods. You have access to the Rails helpers from the following classes:

ActionView::Helpers::TagHelper
ActionView::Helpers::UrlHelper
ActionView::Helpers::TextHelper

Use the new methods in your views like any other model method (ex: @article.formatted_published_at)

Possible Decoration Methods

Here are some ideas of what you might do in decorator methods:

  • Implement output formatting for to_csv, to_json, or to_xml
  • Format dates and times using strftime
  • Implement a commonly used representation of the data object like a .name method that combines first_name and last_name attributes

Example Using a Decorator

Say I have a publishing system with Article resources. My designer decides that whenever we print the published_at timestamp, it should be constructed like this:

<span class='published_at'>
  <span class='date'>Monday, May 6</span>
  <span class='time'>8:52AM</span>
</span>

Could we build that using a partial? Yes. A helper? Uh-huh. But the point of the decorator is to encapsulate logic just like we would a method in our models. Here's how to implement it.

First, follow the steps above to add the dependency, update your bundle, then run the rails generate decorator:setup to prepare your app.

Since we're talking about the Article model we'll create an ArticleDecorator class. You could do it by hand, but use the provided generator:

rails generate decorator:model Article

Now open up the created app/decorators/article_decorator.rb and you'll find an ArticleDecorator class. You'll see commented-out samples for how to utilize Rails' view helper methods. Move below those comments and add this method:

def formatted_published_at
  date = content_tag(:span, published_at.strftime("%A, %B %e").squeeze(" "), :class => 'date')
  time = content_tag(:span, published_at.strftime("%l:%M%p").delete(" "), :class => 'time')
  content_tag :span, date + time, :class => 'published_at'
end

ASIDE: Unfortunately, due to the current implementation of content_tag, you can't use the style of sending the content is as a block or you'll get an error about undefined method 'output_buffer='. Passing in the content as the second argument, as above, works fine.

Then you need to perform the wrapping in your controller. Here's the simplest method:

class ArticlesController < ApplicationController
  def show
    @article = ArticleDecorator.new( Article.find params[:id] )
  end
end

Then within your views you can utilize both the normal data methods and your new presentation methods:

<%= @article.formatted_published_at %>

Ta-da! Object-oriented data formatting for your view layer. Below is the complete decorator with extra comments removed:

class ArticleDecorator < RailsDecorators::Base
  def formatted_published_at
    date = content_tag(:span, published_at.strftime("%A, %B %e").squeeze(" "), :class => 'date')
    time = content_tag(:span, published_at.strftime("%l:%M%p"), :class => 'time').delete(" ")
    content_tag :span, date + time, :class => 'created_at'
  end
end

License

(The MIT License)

Copyright © 2011 Jeff Casimir

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the ‘Software’), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.