difference between <%= and <%"

[Pepe Sanchez]

Hi all

what is the difference between <%= and <% in a view file?

thanks

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[Tim Shaffer]

<%= prints the contents of the tag, whereas <% does not

[Stefano]

And you couldnt just try that out yourself? :D

[7stud --]

Tim Shaffer wrote in post #1017353:

> <%= prints the contents of the tag,

Well, it never meant that. <%= tells ruby to print the result of the
expression between the tags. For instance,

<%= 2+2 %>

would not print '2 + 2', it would print '4'. But even the "result of
the expression" isn't an entirely accurate description--because in rails
3 you write:

<%= form_for(@user) do |f| %>

which doesn't fit that description. In ruby, 'form_for(@user) do |f|'
isn't an expression--it's the first half of a loop/block, so it's an
incomplete expression. In other words, in ruby if you wrote:

result = some_func(arg) do |x|

you would get an error. Maybe its best to think of <%= form_for() as an
exception to the rule?

One example of how <%= and <% differ is this:

<% 3.times do |i| %>
<div>loop: <%= i %></div>
<% end %>

The <% tags just execute the ruby code and don't enter any text onto the
page, which causes ruby/.erb to loop over the <div> tag 3 times. The
<%= tag inside the loop prints the value of the variable i. So you get:

<div>loop: 0</div>
<div>loop: 1</div>
<div>loop: 2</div>

[Walter Lee Davis]

Here's another way to look at this. '<%=' is a shortcut for '<% puts'.
There's a similar construction in PHP: '<?=' is a shortcut for '<?php
echo (or print)'.

Walter

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[Pepe Sanchez]

Thank you all for your answers!

[Alexey Muranov]

Walter Davis wrote in post #1017505:

> Here's another way to look at this. '<%=' is a shortcut for '<% puts'.
> There's a similar construction in PHP: '<?=' is a shortcut for '<?php
> echo (or print)'.
>
> Walter

I do not believe you can use '<% puts' in ERB, i thought you are
supposed to use '<% concat'

Alexey.

[Walter Lee Davis]

On Aug 21, 2011, at 3:34 AM, Alexey Muranov wrote:

> Walter Davis wrote in post #1017505:
>
>> Here's another way to look at this. '<%=' is a shortcut for '<%
>> puts'.
>> There's a similar construction in PHP: '<?=' is a shortcut for '<?php
>> echo (or print)'.
>>
>> Walter
>
> I do not believe you can use '<% puts' in ERB, i thought you are
> supposed to use '<% concat'

Thanks! I never tried this, actually.

Walter

>
> Alexey.
>
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> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
>