Comments on: Rails Tip: Use Polymorphism to Extend your Controllers at Runtime http://blog.mattwynne.net/2009/07/11/rails-tip-use-polymorphism-to-extend-your-controllers-at-runtime/ Matt Wynne taking it one tea at a time Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:31:34 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Richie Vos http://blog.mattwynne.net/2009/07/11/rails-tip-use-polymorphism-to-extend-your-controllers-at-runtime/comment-page-1/#comment-762 Richie Vos Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:01:33 +0000 http://blog.mattwynne.net/2009/07/11/rails-tip-use-polymorphism-to-extend-your-controllers-at-runtime/#comment-762 <p>Very interesting approach to this problem. I'm dealing with a similar situation where I want to send different forms of xml to different clients and I was thinking about:</p> <pre>@things.to_xml(:api => '123')</pre> <p>OR</p> <pre>@things = blah if x render 'api1' elsif y render 'api2' else render 'api3' end</pre> <p>but your approach feels cleaner, though for simplicity I might just do something like</p> <pre>before_filter :determine_api def determine_api @template = 'xyz' end </pre> Very interesting approach to this problem. I’m dealing with a similar situation where I want to send different forms of xml to different clients and I was thinking about:

@things.to_xml(:api => '123')

OR

@things = blah
if x
  render 'api1'
elsif y
  render 'api2'
else
  render 'api3'
end

but your approach feels cleaner, though for simplicity I might just do something like

before_filter :determine_api

def determine_api
  @template = 'xyz'
end
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