how to upload files in rails

Question

My app is a surveybuilder...it needs upload cvs files by users, Im working with rails 3.1.3., ruby 1.9.2 ande devise 1.5.3 for authentication, but I tried: http://www.jedi.

Answer 1

Carrierwave (https://github.com/jnicklas/carrierwave) is pretty much the standard when it comes to files uploading.

Otherwise, here is a simplier method if you don't need a full-fledged gem: Rails 3 - upload files to public directory

Answer 2

I found an excelent project in github with javascript, in rails 3.2.1, you can upload a file and save it in the database, is done with sqlite, but is very easy to change it to mysql here is the link: upload files in rails 3.2.1, javascript and sqlite

Answer 3

If your goal is to upload a file to a directory you shouldn't have to use Carrierwave or Paperclip. Those gems have a lot of support for image processing and extra options.

I suggest you look at the Ruby file class and the open method to be more specific. http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-1.9.3/File.html#method-c-open

Something like the following should do the trick:

# "public/csv" is the directory you want to save the files in
# upload["datafile"] is the data populated by the file input tag in your html form 
path = File.join("public/csv", upload["datafile"].original_filename)
File.open(path, "wb") { |f| f.write(upload["datafile"].read) }

Keep in mind, your public directory is accessible to the world. If you need to save these in a more private location, make sure the directory is only readable and writable by your app.

Also, if you are working with CSV files, be sure to read through the Ruby CSV class: http://ruby-doc.org/stdlib-1.9.2/libdoc/csv/rdoc/CSV.html. It makes working with CSV files a breeze.