Returning a 1x1 .gif as a response in Rails

Question

I'm building a Rails app that does conversion tracking on outside sites. I'd like to allow users to paste an image tag in their conversion pages (like AdWords), and whenever that image is requested, a conversion registers in my app.

respond_to do |format|
  if @conversion.save
    flash[:notice] = 'Conversion was successfully created.'
    format.html { redirect_to(@conversion) }
    format.xml  { render :xml => @conversion, :status => :created, :location => @conversion }
    format.js { render :json => @conversion, :status => :created }
    format.gif { head :status => :ok }
  else
    format.html { render :action => "new" }
    format.xml  { render :xml => @conversion.errors, :status => :unprocessable_entity }
  end
end    

This way, the browser gets a non-existent .gif image. Is there a better way to do this?

Answer 1

This seems to be a simpler solution

Source:

http://forrst.com/posts/Render_a_1x1_Transparent_GIF_with_Rails-eV4

instead of rendering, call

send_data(Base64.decode64("R0lGODlhAQABAPAAAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="), :type => "image/gif", :disposition => "inline")