# File upload --- acts\_as\_attachment or file\_column **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [February 9, 2007, 1:35am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/file-upload-acts-as-attachment-or-file-column/84991 "2007-02-09T01:35:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![albert](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/48db29/32.png) [@albert](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/albert)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 1:35am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/file-upload-acts-as-attachment-or-file-column/84991/1 "2007-02-09T01:35:17Z")
Hi, I have a simple rubyonrails application, in which users can submit their research projcts. The applcation has the following models: project: set of predefined fields where users save their project in member\_project: keep track of who submitted what project member: keep track of members. I need to provide file uploading facilities with this application so the users can attach files to their projects. The system should support: pdf, txt, ps, word : maximum 700 kb jpg, gif: maximum of 1 MB Mov, Mpeg, Mpg, and AVI: maximum size of 1.9 MB I wonder which of acts\_as\_attachment or file\_column are more appropriate for my application.alos, whether I should save my files in the database or on the server (considering that I don’t know about Network Adminstration and don’t know whether I should get some type of write permission for my APP to be able to do this). Any suggestion and help is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Albert P.S. Is there any open-source application that I can look at to get an idea of how to do this? ---
**Author:** ![albert](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/48db29/32.png) [@albert](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/albert)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 2:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/file-upload-acts-as-attachment-or-file-column/84991/2 "2007-02-09T02:15:06Z")
Hi Albert, My recommendation would be that you not store your files in the database if at all possible. Databases are inefficient and clumsy at storing files like the ones you’re dealing with. Surely your host gives you write permissions to your own application folder, because how else would you deploy your code, add to logs, etc. As for acts\_as\_attachment vs. file\_column, sorry can’t help you there. I found them both too clumsy and switched to just writing the code myself. We’re only talking about 10 lines of code, max, for most situations here, so it’s not really a big saving. albert wrote: > Hi, > > I have a simple rubyonrails application, in which users can submit their > research projcts. The applcation has the following models: > > project: set of predefined fields where users save their project in > member\_project: keep track of who submitted what project > member: keep track of members. > > I need to provide file uploading facilities with this application so the > users can attach files to their projects. The system should support: > pdf, txt, ps, word : maximum 700 kb > jpg, gif: maximum of 1 MB > Mov, Mpeg, Mpg, and AVI: maximum size of 1.9 MB > > I wonder which of acts\_as\_attachment or file\_column are more appropriate > for my application.alos, whether I should save my files in the database > or on the server (considering that I don’t know about Network > Adminstration and don’t know whether I should get some type of write > permission for my APP to be able to do this). > > Any suggestion and help is greatly appreciated. > > Thanks, > Albert > > P.S. Is there any open-source application that I can look at to get an > idea of how to do this? ---
**Author:** ![albert](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/48db29/32.png) [@albert](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/albert)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 2:46am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/file-upload-acts-as-attachment-or-file-column/84991/3 "2007-02-09T02:46:38Z")
I agree that it’s better to write your own. In an app I’m writing I’ve used acts\_as\_attachment. It has some convenient thumbnail methods for images but it also does some things I don’t like: 1) separate subdirs for every set of files which are not cleaned up if file is destroyed and 2) keeps original filenames. I can change this behavior in the code but I don’t know if that is more trouble than just writing file handling myself. ---
**Author:** ![albert](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/48db29/32.png) [@albert](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/albert)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 5:38am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/file-upload-acts-as-attachment-or-file-column/84991/4 "2007-02-09T05:38:50Z")
I’ve been pondering this issue for some time now. Keeping files on the file system is OK, but what if you need to run multiple rail servers? The file system then needs to be a network file system accessible by all of the rails servers. This was the whole rational for storing the sessions in the database. I looked at ferret for full text search and had this same issue. The indexes are stored in a directory under rails root called indexes. Looking at all the simultaneous access issues around ferret already putting those indices on a network share sounds even scarier. Is it more painful to use a shared file system or just shove the stuff in the DB? Is storing blobs in the DB really that bad or is that one of those urban legends out there? For the research paper idea, I would just shove that baby into the database and put a fulltext index on it! (I know I’ll be eating these words later). Mike Vargo ---
**Author:** ![albert](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/48db29/32.png) [@albert](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/albert)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 2:52am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/file-upload-acts-as-attachment-or-file-column/84991/5 "2007-02-09T02:52:41Z")
Thanks a lot for your replies. I would appreciated if you can direct me to some references as how to write the uploading code by myself since I am new to ROR and don’t have any idea as how to handel the different file-types, limit the upload size, or how to store the files in anywhere else than the database. Many thanks, -Albert Carl J. wrote: > I agree that it’s better to write your own. In an app I’m writing I’ve > used acts\_as\_attachment. It has some convenient thumbnail methods for > images but it also does some things I don’t like: 1) separate subdirs > for every set of files which are not cleaned up if file is destroyed and > 2) keeps original filenames. > > I can change this behavior in the code but I don’t know if that is more > trouble than just writing file handling myself. ---
**Author:** ![albert](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/48db29/32.png) [@albert](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/albert)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 7:20am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/file-upload-acts-as-attachment-or-file-column/84991/6 "2007-02-09T07:20:57Z")
On 2/8/07, Carl J. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I agree that it’s better to write your own. In an app I’m writing I’ve > used acts\_as\_attachment. It has some convenient thumbnail methods for > images but it also does some things I don’t like: 1) separate subdirs > for every set of files which are not cleaned up if file is destroyed and > 2) keeps original filenames. > > I can change this behavior in the code but I don’t know if that is more > trouble than just writing file handling myself. 1. patches welcome 🙂 2. I just make the mods in the model. If I want a custom file naming scheme, I typically override #full\_filename. It is easy to write your own, but after awhile you start running into the same problems over and over again. Thats why I wrote acts\_as\_attachment. Well, I also wrote it to store files in the db (which file\_column doesn’t do). It didn’t take long before I added file system support, which is what I primarily use now. – Rick O. [http://weblog.techno-weenie.net](http://weblog.techno-weenie.net) [http://mephistoblog.com](http://mephistoblog.com)