gistfile1.haml

- @last_date = ''

- @results.each do |row|

  - if row.election_d != @last_date
    - @last_date = row.election_d
    %h2= row.election_d
    %table

  %tr
    %td{ :style => "background-color: #{row.party_colour}" }
       
    %td= row.party_name
    %td= row.c_surname
    %td= to_ordinal(row.position)
    %td= commify(row.votes)

Haml issues in a Sinatra app. I'm trying to output a collection of tables using data from a single array. This kind of thing works fine in non-significant-whitespace templates but Haml (understandably) can't work out that the %h2 and %table are meant to enclose the following %trs in the block below. Any ideas for a workaround? I could generate each table from a separate query but it's preferable to do them all at once.

You have to nest the %tr inside the %table to work in haml..
You could consider some other approach like grouping the records by election_d before and then iterating.
Assiming you're on ruby 1.9, you could try something like

@results.group_by{|result| result.election_d }.each do |election_date, row|
  %h2= election_date
  %table
    %tr
      %td

Thanks for that. I hadn't heard of group_by before but I can see how that's useful.

In the end I simplified it by using nested loops around first the elections and then the candidacies for each election as in this commit.

Here it is in action.