Rails: An elegant way to display a message when there are no elements in database

You could also write something like this:

<% if @messages.each do |message| %>
  <%# code or partial to display the message %>
<% end.empty? %>
  You have no messages.
<% end %>

If you use the :collection parameter to render e.g. render :partial => 'message', :collection => @messages then the call to render will return nil if the collection is empty. This can then be incorporated into an || expression e.g.

<%= render(:partial => 'message', :collection => @messages) || 'You have no messages' %>

In case you haven't come across it before, render :collection renders a collection using the same partial for each element, making each element of @messages available through the local variable message as it builds up the complete response. You can also specify a divider to be rendered in between each element using :spacer_template => "message_divider"

I'm surprised my favorite answer isn't up here. There is an answer thats close, but I don't like bare text and using content_for is klunky. Try this one on for size:

  <%= render(@user.recipes) || content_tag("p") do %>
    This user hasn't added any recipes yet!
  <% end %>