Rails - Jul 2006 - Newbie Question about Ruby on rails---cant upload data

Hi everybody,

Ruby on Rails is my first programming lenguage...it looks to me like
i''m
missing the big picture.  I''m trying to upload a file into a database. 
In my app. my user needs to select a file and upload it...however I only 
want him to upload certain information from that file.  I have written 
code to parse only string tables from that file.  For example, the table 
could look like this:

"hello" = "hello world"
"sayHIgh" = "Saying hello to the world"

To parse it, I have done this in a regular ruby class (and it works!):

class Parser

table = { }
IO.foreach(''Localizable.strings'') { |line|
  if line =~ /^ \s* " (.*?) " \s* = \s* " (.*?) "/x
    table[ $1 ] = $2
  end
}

#puts table["StaplingTitle"]
p table
end


I have my view app. in views:

<h1>Importing Strings<h1>
<%= start_form_tag({:action => ''create''}, :multipart
=> true)%>
    <p>
        <b>Lenguage:</b><br/>
        <%=	select("variable", nil, @array_of_lenguages)	%>
    </p>
    <p>
        <b>Path: </b><br />
        <%= file_field "description", "description"%>
    </p>

    <p><%= submit_tag "Import"%></p>

<%= end_form_tag%>

My view asks for the path of the file.


So here is my problem:

Since I''m new with programming, it seems kind of confusing.  What
should
I do to accomplish a succesful load of those parsed keys-values into my 
database?

What about the controller?

I know this is a newbie question, I really hope someone can help me out.

Thanks.

-Ferguson




-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

On Jul 21, 2006, at 11:13 AM, Ricardo Furgeson wrote:
>
> So here is my problem:
>
> Since I''m new with programming, it seems kind of confusing.  What
> should
> I do to accomplish a succesful load of those parsed keys-values  
> into my
> database?
>
> What about the controller?
>
> I know this is a newbie question, I really hope someone can help me  
> out.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -Ferguson

Hey Fergeson-

	Let''s see if we can get you going in the right direction here. You  
Are most of the way there since you have your parser and view  
already. You need a database table, a model for that table and a  
controller to get data from the view and stick it in the model.

	So first you need to create a migration for the db table. Lets call  
it localized_strings. So from inside of your rails app run this command:

$ script/generate model LocalizedString

That will create a file in RAILS_ROOT/db/migrate/ 
001_create_localized_strings.rb . Put this inside of it:

class CreateLocalizedStrings < ActiveRecord::Migration
   def self.up
     create_table : localized_strings do |t|
         t.column :key, :string
         t.column :value, :string
     end
   end

   def self.down
     drop_table : localized_strings
   end
end

Save that file and run rake migrate. You will now have a model called  
LocalizedString to hold your data in after you parse it.

Lets make the view even simpler for now and just deal with the file  
upload

<h1>Importing Strings<h1>
<%= start_form_tag({:action => ''create''}, :multipart
=> true)%>

     <p>
         <b>Path: </b><br />
         <%= file_field "localized_string", "data"%>
     </p>

     <p><%= submit_tag "Import"%></p>

<%= end_form_tag%>

Now you need a controller to handle the busy work.


class MyController < ActionController::Base

    def create
       table = { }
       # params[: localized_string][:data] is a File or StringIO  
object when its a file upload
       params[: localized_string][:data].each_line do |line|
         if line =~ /^ \s* " (.*?) " \s* = \s* " (.*?) "/x
           table[ $1 ] = $2
         end
      end
      # loop over key=>val pairs in table and create new model  
records from each one
      table.each do |key,val|
         LocalizedString.create(:key => key, :value => val)
      end
    end

end


That should get you where you need to go.

Cheers-
-Ezra