Helpers not working with a modular Sinatra app

Question

I'm having some trouble getting helpers to work with a modular Sinatra app. I have a master controller and a bunch of others inheriting from it. So / maps to Root, /auth maps to Auth, etc.

Main module:

require 'sinatra/base'
# Lots of other requires

# Helper
module Utils
  def test
    puts "Test helper"
    return 'test'
  end
end

# Main app
class Application < Sinatra::Base    
  helpers Utils

  # Lots of config
end

"Controllers" inherit Application, like:

class Root < Application

  get '/' do
    puts Utils # Exists
    puts Utils.test # Breaks

    # view() Defined directly in `Application`, runs slim
    view :index
  end

end

This results in:

NoMethodError at /

private method `test' called for Utils:Module

A bit stumped. Any help?

Answer 1

Using a helpers module makes all the methods in it directly available to the code in the routes, without needing to prefix it with the module name.

You can just do this:

get '/' do
  puts test

  # view() Defined directly in `Application`, runs slim
  view :index
end

The reason you are getting private method `test' called for Utils:Module rather than undefined method `test' for Utils:Module is because there already is a test method in Kernel, which is therefore available as a private method on all classes.