HTML escaped in Rails 3

Question

I have a method call in my view like this

<%= Navigation.with(params) do |menu| 
              if current_user && current_user.can_verify?
                menu.item("Listings", manage_listings_path())
                menu.item("Listing changes", needing_change_approval_manage_listings_path())
                menu.item("Flagged Items", flagged_manage_listings_path())
                menu.item("Transfers", manage_listing_transfers_path())
                menu.item("Reviews", manage_listing_reviews_path())
              end
              if current_user && current_user.admin?
                menu.item("Log", manage_verifications_path())
                menu.item("Indexer Compensations", manage_compensations_path())
                menu.item("Users", manage_users_path())
              end
            end%>

that splits out the below string

"<li><a href="/manage/listings" class="active">Listings</a></li> <li><a href="/manage/listings/needing_change_approval">Listing changes</a></li> <li><a href="/manage/listings/flagged">Flagged Items</a></li> <li><a href="/manage/listing_transfers">Transfers</a></li> <li><a href="/manage/listing_reviews">Reviews</a></li> <li><a href="/manage/verifications">Log</a></li> <li><a href="/manage/compensations">Indexer Compensations</a></li> <li><a href="/manage/users">Users</a></li>"

I just get this string in my page. I wanted them to be menus nicely styled by CSS. I am just getting the above raw text in my page. How do I convert this string to be treated as HTML by the browser.

Please help

Here is the navigation class

class NavigationMenu < ActionView::Base
  def initialize(params)
    @params = params
  end

  def item(title, path, options={})
    @items ||= Array.new
    unless (route = Rails.application.routes.recognize_path(path,:method => options[:method]|| :get))
      raise "Unrecognised path #{path}, are you sure it's in routes.rb?"
    end

    @items << content_tag(:li, link_to(title,path, :class => (@params[:controller] == route[:controller] && @params[:action] == route[:action])? 'active' : nil))

  end

  def output
    return '' if @items.blank?
    content_tag(:ul, @items.join("\n"), :id => 'navigation')
  end
end

class Navigation
  def self.with(params, &block)
    menu = NavigationMenu.new(params)
    yield menu
    menu.output
  end
end

Answer 1

You have to add a call to the raw method:

<%= raw ... %>

This is necessary, because in Rails 3 every string is escaped by default, unless you use the raw method. It's like an inverse of the h method in Rails 2, where every string is unescaped by default, unless you use the h method.

Example:

This code in Rails 2...

<%= h "String which must be escaped" %>
<%= "String which must be output raw %>

... must be this in Rails 3:

<%= "String which must be escaped" %>
<%= raw "String which must be output raw %>

(Although an additional call to h doesn't do any harm in Rails 3)

Answer 2

You need to append .html_safe to the string - this will stop rails from escaping it when it's time to output text. Probably best to put it in the item method that you call repeatedly.

Answer 3

Here is the new class. At last... I got that bug.

class NavigationMenu < ActionView::Base
  def initialize(params)
    @params = params
  end

  def item(title, path, options={})
    @items ||= Array.new
    unless (route = Rails.application.routes.recognize_path(path,:method => options[:method]|| :get))
      raise "Unrecognised path #{path}, are you sure it's in routes.rb?"
    end

    @items << content_tag(:li, link_to(title,path, :class => (@params[:controller] == route[:controller] && @params[:action] == route[:action])? 'active' : nil))

  end

  def output
    @items = @items.join("\n").html_safe
    return '' if @items.blank?
    content_tag(:ul, @items, :id => 'navigation')
  end
end

class Navigation
  def self.with(params, &block)
    menu = NavigationMenu.new(params)
    yield menu
    menu.output
  end
end