Rails - Mar 2006 - Multiple Updates, Multiple Renders, One Ajax Call

The following code snippet allows you to update multiple DOM elements  
in a single Ajax call in Rails (1.1):

   # pass in a hash of domid=>template name
   def update_many(options)
     render :update do |page|
       options.each do |k,v|
         page.replace_html k, render(:partial=>v)
         page.visual_effect :highlight, k
       end
     end
   end

So, if you wanted to update the preview div from the content partial,  
and the status div from the status partial, you could now say:

   update_many ''preview''=>''content'',
''status''=>''status''

Notice that I appear to be breaking the rules, in that I am calling  
render multiple times (once for each item in the option hash). I  
expected to have to call render_to_string instead, but that blows up,  
and this works fine.

Is this behavior by design, or a coincidence? I?d like to get this  
documented and make sure that it is considered a feature.

Regards,
Stuart Halloway
www.relevancellc.com

P.S. Is there a totally better way to do this that I missed? :-)

Hah -- nevermind, nothing like hitting ''send'' to make you see
the
right answer. I see now that I can use the :partial option directly  
without calling render at all.
> The following code snippet allows you to update multiple DOM  
> elements in a single Ajax call in Rails (1.1):
>
>   # pass in a hash of domid=>template name
>   def update_many(options)
>     render :update do |page|
>       options.each do |k,v|
>         page.replace_html k, render(:partial=>v)
>         page.visual_effect :highlight, k
>       end
>     end
>   end
>
> So, if you wanted to update the preview div from the content  
> partial, and the status div from the status partial, you could now  
> say:
>
>   update_many ''preview''=>''content'',
''status''=>''status''
>
> Notice that I appear to be breaking the rules, in that I am calling  
> render multiple times (once for each item in the option hash). I  
> expected to have to call render_to_string instead, but that blows  
> up, and this works fine.
>
> Is this behavior by design, or a coincidence? I?d like to get this  
> documented and make sure that it is considered a feature.