Conductr

Sometimes, usually in development, I find it useful to have my Javascripts printed inline rather than using the <script src="/path/to"> tags that are generated by javascript_include_tag.

With javascript_inline_tag you can simply declare your Javascripts just like you would with javascript_include_tag and it will spit out the script into your view/layout.

Put it where you like, but I chose to keep with my application_helper.rb.

module ApplicationHelper
  # ..... your app helpers, per usual
end

module ActionView::Helpers::AssetTagHelper
  def javascript_inline_tag(*sources)
    if sources.include?(:defaults) 
      sources = sources[0..(sources.index(:defaults))] + 
      @@javascript_default_sources.dup + 
      sources[(sources.index(:defaults) + 1)..sources.length]
      sources.delete(:defaults) 
      sources << "application" if defined?(RAILS_ROOT) && File.exists?("#{RAILS_ROOT}/public/javascripts/application.js") 
    end

    sources.collect do |source|
      source = javascript_path(source).sub(/\?\d+/,'')
      contents = ''
      File.open("#{RAILS_ROOT}/public#{source}").each do |line|
        contents << line
      end
      javascript_tag(contents)
    end.join("\n")
  end
end

<%= javascript_inline_tag :defaults,'niftycube' %>

1. You can not pass an options hash.
2. For production, I’ll just say, consider caching (browser&server) and page size.
3. Nifty Corners Cube is an awesome script that I recently discovered.
4. You may find render :file => '' to work for you, I just thought it wasn’t flexible enough for this situation.