From: Mark Hubbart <discord@...>
Date: 2004-02-14T09:15:08+09:00
Subject: Re: cgi params in ruby


On Feb 13, 2004, at 3:20 PM, Cere Davis wrote:

>
> Thank you both for helping me with this.
>
>
>
> This an error I am doomed to repeat I'm afraid because I understand 
> Hash.map and join systax (and didn't think it existed because ri 
> didn't list it under the  Hash method).
>
> Hash.map would map to an array of key val pairs I suppose...where val 
> would be an array still.  Then text fields get generated with <br>... 
> Then when I .join it's doing what?

First of all, part of the problem you had, I think, is with the (IMHO) 
strange syntax that is used in the CGI module. When you call 
cgi.h1{"Title"}, or something like it, all it does is wrap it in the 
tag, so:

cgi.h1{"Title"}  #=> "<h1>Title</h1>"
or:
cgi.h1{"A " + cgi.bold{"Bold"} + " Title"}  #=> "<h1>A <b>Bold</b> 
Title</h1>

It just returns the string you gave it, but wrapped in a tag. So, if 
you do this:
cgi.params.map{|key,value| cgi.text_field(key, val.to_s) + cgi.br }

You end up getting an array of strings that each look something like 
this:
'<input type="text" name="key" value="value"><br>'

You finish it up by #joining the strings.
cgi.params.map{|key,value| cgi.text_field(key, val.to_s) + cgi.br }.join

Which gives you a string containing valid html markup, which can be 
passed (in a block) to cgi.form{}, etc.
Also, calling aHash.map is functionally the same as calling 
aHash.to_a.map: it passes key/value pairs to the block.

Cheers,
Mark