Rails Helper that will return a url for a gravatar

gravatar_helper.rb

module GravatarHelper

  def gravatar_url_for(email, options = {})
    options = { :size => '200', :default => 'retro', :rating => 'pg'}.merge(options)
    size = options[:size] 
    rating = options[:rating]
    default = options[:default]
    # create the md5 hash
    hash = Digest::MD5.hexdigest(email)

    # compile URL which can be used in <img src="RIGHT_HERE"...
    image_src = "http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/#{hash}?s=#{size}r=#{rating}&d=#{default}"
    
    return image_src
  end

end

Usage:

<%= image_tag(gravatar_url_for(email, {:options => 'here'})) %>