Rails - How to send an image from a controller

Question

in my rails app, I need to pass back a image.

I have a 1x1.gif tracking pixel in my route as follows:

 match \"/_ctrack.gif\" => \"email_tracking_         


        

Answer 1

Is there a reason that you cannot save the file to public/_ctrack.gif, remove the route, and let the underlying web server serve the image?

If you need to process the image from disk, just use open on the local filename:

send_data open("#{Rails.root}/path/to/file.gif", "rb") { |f| f.read } .......

The rb sets the file to open and binary modes.

Answer 2

Wouldn't be better to use send_file instead?

send_file Rails.root.join("public", "file.gif"), type: "image/gif", disposition: "inline"