jpgeek · October 26, 2012 11:37 · Oct 26, 2012
diff --git a/gistfile1.txt b/gistfile1.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+String output from html helpers like link_to are html_safe.
+In the console:
+
+lnk = helper.link_to('home', '/')
+ => "<a href=\"/\">home</a>"
+lnk.html_safe? 
+=> true
+
+However, if you have html-ish stuff in the text arguments to the helper,
+it must be html_safe blessed:
+
+helper.link_to('home', '<tag>')
+ => "<a href=\"&lt;tag&gt;\">home</a>" 
+
+BUT
+
+helper.link_to('home', '<tag>'.html_safe)
+=> "<a href=\"<tag>\">home</a>" 
+
+# Moving them around doesn't hurt:
+
+links = []
+links << lnk
+links[0].html_safe?  # true
+
+Strings are by default not html safe:
+"foo".html_safe?   # false
+
+Concatenation with anything unsafe causes it all to be unsafe:
+("foo" + lnk).html_safe?   # false
+("foo".html_safe + lnk).html_safe?   # true
+
+Careful with Array.join:
+links << "foo".html_safe
+links.join.html_safe?              # false  WTF?
+(links[0] + links[1]).html_safe?   # true
+links[0].class       # ActiveSupport::SafeBuffer
+links.join.class     # String
+
+The Array.join creates a new string and shoves it all in, thus losing 
+the ActiveSupport::SafeBuffer and all its html_safe goodness.