Placing folders, inserting files, zipping all and providing download - ruby-on-rails

Question

I have a project running.
And I have a few fundamental Ruby-On-Rails-questions on:
where to place a folder in my rails installation, so i have access to it from within my controllers
how to place files inside that folder when models are saved
how to zip it
providing the zip as a download
now, let me explain:
I want to save to a "pages" folder that has a subfolder "blog"
to that blog-folder I want to add subfolders each representing a post
the name of the post-folder is created by the user, as he provides a title
each post-folder has a MarkDown file in it called "post.md"
if the user clicks a download-button the whole "pages"-folder should be zipped and sent to the client as a download

Answer 1

Technically you can put your folder anywhere, and access your .md file like following (as long as you have permission to read that file):
def show
markdown=Redcarpet::Markdown.new(Redcarpet::Render::HTML)
md_file = IO.read("#{Rails.root}\static\pages\blog\post.md")
#post = markdown.render(md_file)
end
and at view
<%= #post.html_safe %>
According to documentation of 'rubyzip' gem you will need something like this to make your directory zipable:
class ZipFileGenerator
# Initialize with the directory to zip and the location of the output archive.
def initialize(inputDir, outputFile)
#inputDir = inputDir
#outputFile = outputFile
end
# Zip the input directory.
def write()
entries = Dir.entries(#inputDir); entries.delete("."); entries.delete("..")
io = Zip::File.open(#outputFile, Zip::File::CREATE);
writeEntries(entries, "", io)
io.close();
end
# A helper method to make the recursion work.
private
def writeEntries(entries, path, io)
entries.each { |e|
zipFilePath = path == "" ? e : File.join(path, e)
diskFilePath = File.join(#inputDir, zipFilePath)
puts "Deflating " + diskFilePath
if File.directory?(diskFilePath)
io.mkdir(zipFilePath)
subdir =Dir.entries(diskFilePath); subdir.delete("."); subdir.delete("..")
writeEntries(subdir, zipFilePath, io)
else
io.get_output_stream(zipFilePath) { |f| f.print(File.open(diskFilePath, "rb").read())}
end
}
end
end
and at your zip action at controller:
directoryToZip = "/pages"
outputFile = "/public/out#{rand(6**length).to_s(6)}.zip"
zf = ZipFileGenerator.new(directoryToZip, outputFile)
zf.write()
and then you can provide the link of outputFile to your user and you may also need to delete that zip file.