Is Rails Paperclip only for Images?

Question

Are there any rails libraries for managing file attachments connected with ActiveRecord?

I know paperclip, but it seems suitable for images primarily. They inde

Answer 1

There's no reason you couldn't use Paperclip for other types of files, but if you want an alternative you can't go wrong with CarrierWave.

Answer 2

The question above contains more than one facette. So I'll try to answer them all one-by-one.

Paperclip::Processor

It is possible to use paperclip for other files than images. You can define custom import actions by subclassing Paperclip::Processor. The following code shows a minimal structure of a custom processor implementation. This can be adapted to any file type with custom options.

module Paperclip
  class FileContents < Processor

    def initialize file, options = {}, attachment = nil
      @file           = file
      @options        = options
      @instance       = attachment.instance
      @current_format = File.extname(attachment.instance.asset_file_name)
      @basename       = File.basename(@file.path, @current_format)
      @whiny          = options[:whiny].nil? ? true : options[:whiny]
    end

    def make
      begin

        # your import code (e.g. ocr or video resizing)...

        @file
      rescue StandardError => e
        raise PaperclipError, "There was an error processing the file contents for #{@basename} - #{e}" if @whiny
      end
    end
  end
end

paperclip and ffmpeg

Someone wrote a paperclip processor for video files already. Have a look at the source of paperclip-ffmpeg gem to see how complex processors are written.

Alternatives

Here are some alternatives I found:

• CarrierWave
• Dragonfly
• attachment_fu

Pro and Cons are already discussed here on stackoverflow.