@ variables in Ruby on Rails

Use @title in your controllers when you want your variable to be available in your views.

The explanation is that @title is an instance variable while title is a local variable. Rails makes instance variables from controllers available to views because the template code (erb, haml, etc) is executed within the scope of the current controller instance.

title is a local variable. They only exists within its scope (current block)

@title is an instance variable - and is available to all methods within the class.

You can read more here: http://strugglingwithruby.blogspot.dk/2010/03/variables.html

In Ruby on Rails - declaring your variables in your controller as instance variables (@title) makes them available to your view.

A tutorial about What is Variable Scope? presents some details quite well, just enclose the related here.

+------------------+----------------------+
| Name Begins With |    Variable Scope    |
+------------------+----------------------+
| $                | A global variable    |
| @                | An instance variable |
| [a-z] or _       | A local variable     |
| [A-Z]            | A constant           |
| @@               | A class variable     |
+------------------+----------------------+