Rails - Oct 2005 - rendering if template exists

Hi folks,

I have a component on my site called RelatedController. I intend to  
put some links and content related with the current page (controller  
and action). What I want to do is for the time being is

render :partial "#{@current_controller}_#{@current_action}"

Then in the component template root I have templates like  
_products_index _products_cart etc. I have decided to put this into a  
component because over the time I''ll be integrating more logic into  
the component but for now all I want is to render a template if it  
exists.

Can anybody recomend how to test the existence of a template and  
render if only it exists?

The error I get is

ActionView::ActionViewError in Sidebar/related#display_box

No rhtml, rxml, or delegate template found for sidebar/related/ 
_products_index

<%= render :partial =>
"#{@current_controller}_#{@current_action}" %>

I was thinking to catch the exception but then I would have to write  
this in the view code of the component, which I don''t want to do. On  
the other hand if I render the partial template to a string, than I''d  
be limiting myself to a specific implementation. In a few days, I''ll  
be coding different related items logic.

I''m just wondering if there is anything like

render :partial => "sometemplate" if FileTest.exists? <a neat
way to
access the template''s full path>

Thanks in advance for any tips on design would be most welcome.

Regards,
Oyku.

Hi Oyku,

<snip>
> Can anybody recomend how to test the existence of a template and
> render if only it exists?
<snip>

That seems like a lot of extra work. Why not just put a normal render
call in there, but change the opening tag from <% to <%= when
you''ve
created the partial?