Question

Does anybody know how to upload a document to later show in a Rails application (as text)? Is Paperclip the right gem to do this? If it is how? (I have uploaded images before with Paperclip).

Answer 1

I like Paperclip. It seems well documented, and has worked well for everything I have needed. (I don’t personally know any of them, but the clever folks at Thoughbot have created some pretty useful stuff, for which I feel indebted to them).

Obviously, you need to add Paperclip to your Gemfile, and (if you are using bundler) do your bundle install

1. Add to your model

   has_attached_file :aFile
   

2. Add to you controller something to catch whatever you name it in your view (probably in your create and update methods)

   @profile.aFile = params[:profile][:aFile]
   

3. Probably should check for its existence, if it is a required param

   if params[:profile][:aFile].blank?
     redirect_to @profile
   else
     render :action => 'do_something_interesting_with_file'
   end
   

And that’s about it. Don’t forget your config entries. For example, if you are using some kind of post-processing on the file

  Paperclip.options[:command_path] = "/opt/local/bin/"

I found this to be extraordinarily helpful

RailsCast by Ryan Bates