Have you ever wanted to render a partial to a string from inside a model?

This solution was inspired by this snippet showing how to use view helpers in a controller. It’s clean and simple, no need to mess with ERB or metaprogramming!

class Model

  class Helper < ActionView::Base
    include Singleton
  end
  def help
    Helper.instance
  end

  ...

  def summarize
    ## Note that we have to use the FULL path here!  
    help.render( :partial => "#{RAILS_ROOT}/app/views/notifications/text_order_summary", :object => self )
  end
  alias_method :to_s, :summarize

end