http://stackoverflow.com/questions/998979/difference-between-and-in-rails/25617607#25617607
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7996695/what-is-the-difference-between-and-in-erb-in-rails
<% %>
Executes the ruby code within the brackets.
<%= %>
Prints something into erb file.
<% -%>
Avoids line break after expression.
<%# %>
Comments out code within brackets; not sent to client (as opposed to HTML comments).
In Ruby 2.1 (not necessarily with Rails), the -
removes one trailing newline:
- the newline must be the first char after the
>
- no spaces are removed
- only a single newline is removed
- you must pass the
'-'
option to use it
Examples:
require 'erb'
ERB.new("<%= 'a' %>\nb").result == "a\nb" or raise begin ERB.new("<%= 'a' -%>\nb").result; rescue SyntaxError ; else raise; end ERB.new("<%= 'a' %>\nb" , nil, '-').result == "a\nb" or raise ERB.new("<%= 'a' -%>\nb" , nil, '-').result == 'ab' or raise ERB.new("<%= 'a' -%> \nb" , nil, '-').result == "a \nb" or raise ERB.new("<%= 'a' -%>\n b" , nil, '-').result == 'a b' or raise ERB.new("<%= 'a' -%>\n\nb", nil, '-').result == "a\nb" or raise