rails: how do i access a method in my application controller?

Question

Noob scoping issue, I imagine. :\\

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  protect_from_forgery

  @locations = get_locations

  def get_locat         


        

Answer 1

You're calling it from the class scope, not from an instance scope. more likely what you want is the following:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  protect_from_forgery
  before_filter :setup_locations


  private
  def setup_locations
    @locations = Location.where(:active => true).order('name').all
  end

end

To make your original example work, you'd need to make #get_locations defined on self (which points to the class at definition), like so:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  protect_from_forgery

  @locations = get_locations

  def self.get_locations
    Location.where(:active => true).order('name').all
  end

end

The problem with that code is that @locations will only be available from the class level as a class instance variable, which is comparable to a static variable in most other languages, and which probably isn't what you want.