Ruby on Rails - Database or excel

I am currently doing a project in Ruby on Rails and I have been
presented
with a dilemma.

The dilemma is that the users of my system will be uploading an excel
spreadsheet. The issue is should I just read straight from this excel
spreadsheet into my front-end or should I load this spreadsheet into my
MySQL database and then to my front-end.

I have asked numerous people about this issue and have researched
on-line
to no avail.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Stephen

On Saturday, November 23, 2013 11:22:22 AM UTC, Stephen L. wrote:

I am currently doing a project in Ruby on Rails and I have been presented with a
dilemma.

The dilemma is that the users of my system will be uploading an excel
spreadsheet. The issue is should I just read straight from this excel spreadsheet
into my front-end or should I load this spreadsheet into my MySQL database and
then to my front-end.

What do you mean by reading into your frontend? It’s not clear to me
what the difference is between the two paths you are confronted with.

Fred.

On 23 November 2013 11:22, Stephen L. [email protected] wrote:

I am currently doing a project in Ruby on Rails and I have been presented
with a dilemma.

The dilemma is that the users of my system will be uploading an excel
spreadsheet. The issue is should I just read straight from this excel
spreadsheet into my front-end or should I load this spreadsheet into my
MySQL database and then to my front-end.

Do you need to modify any of the data (or is it just to be displayed)?

Do you need to keep the data available in the long term?

Do you have to show multiple views of the data (so the spreadsheet
would have to be interrogated multiple times)?

Is this a system that will be modified and extended over time?

If the answer to any of those is yes then extract the data from the
spreadsheet into the database. If you are just providing a simple web
based view on data from the spreadsheet then you could just extract it
on the fly. I would advise using the database however. I think in
the long run it would be simpler and easier to maintain.

Colin