How to get the full URL to an asset in Rails 3.2?

Question

Does Rails have a built in helper to get the url of an image in the asset pipeline?

path_to_image('image.jpg')

gets the relative path.

url_to_image('image.jpg')

doesn't seem to work.

"#{root_url}#{path_to_image('image.jpg')}"

is not very convenient (and gives an extra / between the root and the image path).

Is there a built in method that I'm overlooking? Or do I need to create a helper?

Do you actually need the path or do you just want to use it in a template? — Noah Clark, Jun 17 '12 at 15:42

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 18 '12 at 10:40

It doesn't look like this is built into Rails.

In the end I resorted to a helper method

def image_url(file)
  request.protocol + request.host_with_port + path_to_image(file)
end

This approach gets around the double slash issue of using root_url + image_path(file)

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:31

1

You are looking for image_path

Update

A helper that could derive your task.

def image_url(source)
  "#{root_url}#{image_path(source)}"
end

edited May 23 '17 at 12:31

Community

answered Jun 17 '12 at 15:39

Trip

thanks Trip. image_path is an alias to path_to_image. Unfortuanetly it doesnt work in this case – Andy Harvey Jun 17 '12 at 16:02
Hey Andy, is it that it doesn't work? Or is it that that is not what you are looking for? – Trip Jun 17 '12 at 16:57
'image_path' is the same as 'path_to_image'. It is what I'm already using – Andy Harvey Jun 17 '12 at 17:02
Not sure what it is you're looking for. – Trip Jun 17 '12 at 17:06
i;m looking for a helper that interacts with the asset pipeline, and returns something like `http://example.com/assets/image.jpg`. Both the `image_path` and the `path_to_image` helpers return `/assets/image.jpg`. Appreciate any suggestions you may have. – Andy Harvey Jun 17 '12 at 17:32
Hmm.. I would imagine you would have to build something custom then in a helper for this. The reason being that image_path and its alias only go to the root and not the `host` is because the `host` in any given application could be three or more different parts. But its' helper wouldn't be too difficult. Updated above. – Trip Jun 18 '12 at 08:51

2 Answers2