Create route for external file using get with no controller

Rails
1

I created a special flash file that will read tag cloud variables from
an external text file which will be located in the same directory as the
swf. The tags are kept in the database and once per day a
definitions.txt file is created with the population of the tags, the
ref, and the weight.

My swf file and the external file called definitions.txt are located in
public\swf.

The swf will call a method of get and need to be able to retrieve the
data from that file. How can I create a named route in routes.rb to
accomplish this without a controller present for this action?

public\swf\example.swf
public\swf\definitions.txt

example.swf will attempt to load definitions.txt from the same directory

Any help would be appreciated. I thought I was pretty savvy with routes
but I’ve hit a brick wall.

Thanks.

2

On Jan 6, 3:35Â pm, Alpha B. [email protected] wrote:

data from that file. Â How can I create a named route in routes.rb to
Thanks.

Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/.

This isn’t what rails routing does (half of routing is pointless here,
as with a sane setup the request never even hits the rails app).

If you only want a handy method of linking to the text file from your
app, just create a helper method or a constant.

3

pharrington wrote:

On Jan 6, 3:35Â pm, Alpha B. [email protected] wrote:

data from that file. Â How can I create a named route in routes.rb to
Thanks.

Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/.

This isn’t what rails routing does (half of routing is pointless here,
as with a sane setup the request never even hits the rails app).

If you only want a handy method of linking to the text file from your
app, just create a helper method or a constant.

I don’t need a link. I need a route. There is no link. No one is
clicking any link on any page. The SWF is embedded on the page. The
SWF is attempting to pull data from a text file in its root directory.
If it can be done with a helper method - great, how?

If not, I’m back to square one and need someone to answer my question.

4

On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 12:35 PM, Alpha B. [email protected]
wrote:

data from that file. How can I create a named route in routes.rb to
accomplish this without a controller present for this action?

This really has nothing to do with the Rails or Rails routing system.
If
you’re
wanting to simply do the following:

a) pull data from the db
b) store this date into a file
c) read this data via ActionScript

If my understanding is correct, you can write a simply Ruby script to
pull
the
information from the db and write it out to a file. Next, is this file
being created
at a particular interval? If so, you can use cron to call this script.
It’s not clear
from your initial e-mail as to when you’ll be creating this new file.

-Conrad

5

On Jan 6, 4:00Â pm, Alpha B. [email protected] wrote:

If you only want a handy method of linking to the text file from your
app, just create a helper method or a constant.

I don’t need a link. Â I need a route. Â There is no link. Â No one is
clicking any link on any page. Â The SWF is embedded on the page. Â The
SWF is attempting to pull data from a text file in its root directory.
If it can be done with a helper method - great, how?

If not, I’m back to square one and need someone to answer my question.

Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Ok. The text file’s in the app’s /public directory… you don’t need a
route. That is what /public is for; a directory to serve static files
directly via the web server, bypassing your app. Just access it from
your swf like you would any other resource thats in /public.

6

pharrington wrote:

On Jan 6, 4:00Â pm, Alpha B. [email protected] wrote:

If you only want a handy method of linking to the text file from your
app, just create a helper method or a constant.

I don’t need a link. Â I need a route. Â There is no link. Â No one is
clicking any link on any page. Â The SWF is embedded on the page. Â The
SWF is attempting to pull data from a text file in its root directory.
If it can be done with a helper method - great, how?

If not, I’m back to square one and need someone to answer my question.

Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Ok. The text file’s in the app’s /public directory… you don’t need a
route. That is what /public is for; a directory to serve static files
directly via the web server, bypassing your app. Just access it from
your swf like you would any other resource thats in /public.

Thanks mate. This is what I didn’t realize.

I moved the file definitions.txt to public\ and everything is working
fine now.

I appreciate the clarification.