Rails Dispatch

On the using a default to track the timestamp, you are absolutely right and it was probably a bad example given that.

The proc idea is a great idea, so I just wrote a patch that implements this, it is now in the “Rails Github repository”: and look forward to it in the next rails release or by tracking Rails git in your Gemfile.

I also added the ability to call ActionMailer instance methods as well.

You would call it like so:

class Notifier < ActionMailer::Base
  default :from => "mikel@rubyx.com",
          :reply_to => "enquiries@rubyx.com",
          "X-Time-Code" => Proc.new { Time.now.to_i.to_s },
          "X-Special-Method" => Proc.new { my_method }

  def welcome_email(user)
    @name = user.name
    @message = user.message
    mail(:to => user.email, :subject => "G'day Mate!", 
      :sender => "system@rubyx.com")
  end

  private

  def my_method
    "This is some arbitrary string"
  end

end

The resulting Proc gets called ON generation of the Mail object, not when it is sent.

Thanks for pointing it out!