Rails 2 - sending pdf via emailer - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm using ruby 1.8.7, rails 2.3.4, rubygems 1.3.6, windows 7 home basic.
Objective: to convert a html page into pdf and send it via email. (like an online receipt)
Here's what i used: prawn (for pdf) emailer (for email)
question: how to do i send an email to a real email address? All i got from the tutorial is sending an "email" that can be seen in command prompt. that's all. another question is how to generate pdf's on the fly, meaning there should be no file generated and attach it to an email? It's really hard and I have been working on this for weeks now. thanks.

Answer 1

The precise answer to your question depends on precisely how you're generating your pdfs, but here's an example that should work:
1) In your controller file (as part of an action)
pdf_doc = Prawn::Document.new()
pdf.text "Hello, world" # etc, etc
data_string = pdf_doc.render
user = 'me#example.com'
Emailer.deliver_email_with_attachment(user,data_string)
2) In your mailer file (e.g. app/models/emailer.rb)
class Emailer < ActionMailer::Base
def email_with_attachment(user, data)
# setup your email as normal using #from, #subject, etc
#from = user
# now attach the pdf
attachment :content_type => "application/pdf", :body => data
end
end
for more information on attachments in ActionMailer see The rails docs
EDIT: You should also make sure you've edited your config file(s) to make sure your rails app can send emails. As you're using windows you'll need to configure sending by SMTP:
config/environments/development.rb
config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :smtp
config.action_mailer.smtp_settings = {
:address => "my.smtp-server.com",
:port => 25,
:domain => 'iwantgreatcare.org',
:user_name => 'username',
:password => 'password',
:authentication => 'plain',
}
For more information on configuring smtp setting see the Rails ActionMailer guide