🎓 Rails Translation Scope

Previously I had been writing “dynamic” lookups like this

# post.rb
class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  STATES = ["draft", "published", "destroyed"]
  
  def state
    STATES.sample
  end
end

# posts/show.html.erb
...
  <dl>
    <dt>State</dt>
    <dd>
	  <%= I18n.t("post.states.#{post.state}") %>
	</dd>
  </dl>
...

Now that I’ve understood scope I would achieve the same functionality in a cleaner syntax

# post.rb
class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  STATES = ["draft", "published", "destroyed"]
  
  def state
    STATES.sample
  end
end

# posts/show.html.erb
...
  <dl>
    <dt>State</dt>
    <dd>
	  <%= I18n.t(post.state, scope: "post.states") %>
	</dd>
  </dl>
...

A subtle change much much more readable