Rails Address Format Helper

Question

I am trying to create a helper that will format an address from 5 columns (add1,add2, add3,add4,add5) so that it will compact any nulls and display on screen as such

Add1,
Add3,
Add4,
Add5

(add 2 was skipped as it was null)

I created the following helper to assemble and skip any nulls but I can not introduce a new line break. Any ideas?

def delivery_address(customer)
@customer =  Customer.find(customer.id) 

if @customer.del_address1.blank? 
  deladdress = "No Delivery Address"
else

    deladdress = @customer.del_address1 
    deladdress = deladdress + "</br>"

  if customer.del_address2.blank?
    else 
    deladdress = deladdress + @customer.del_address2 + ","

  end

  if @customer.del_address3.blank?
    else 
    deladdress = deladdress +  @customer.del_address3 + ","

  end

  if @customer.del_address4.blank?
    else 
    deladdress = deladdress +  @customer.del_address4 + ","

  end

  if @customer.del_address5.blank?
    else 
    deladdress = deladdress +  @customer.del_address5

  end

end

end

Answer 1

One important advise: You should not do any database queries inside a view helper. This should only be done in the controller. An active record should already be passed into the helper function. So this line

@customer =  Customer.find(customer.id)

can be removed.

def delivery_address(customer)
  # Use a guard clause, this reduces if nesting
  return 'No Delivery Address' if customer.del_address1.blank? 

  # Collect all parts    
  parts = [customer.del_address1, customer.del_address2, customer.del_address3, customer.del_address4, customer.del_address5]

  # Remove all empty parts.
  # Using a bang method is lighter on memory allocation
  # and will speed up performance.
  parts.reject!(&:blank?) 

  parts.join('<br/>').html_safe
end