Difficulty with send_data in Ruby on Rails in conjunction with Spreadsheet plug-in

Question

I have a function in a controller that takes in some specifications and generates a report on them. This function user_report is called in a view:

< %= submit_to

Answer 1

Even though I dont like to write and delete , but with spreadsheet seems like the only solution.

---

  # write the file

 book.write "Employee_History_#{ params[:id]}.xls"

 # send the file

 send_file "Employee_History_#{ params[:id]}.xls", :type => "application/vnd.ms-excel", :filename => "data.xls", :stream => false

 # and then delete the file

 File.delete("Employee_History_#{ params[:id]}.xls")

Answer 2

Just change the line:

send_data data.string, :type=>"application/excel", :disposition=>'attachment', :filename => @outfile

to:

send_data data.string.bytes.to_a.pack("C*"), :type=>"application/excel", :disposition=>'attachment', :filename => @outfile