Whats the best way to put a small ruby app online? - ruby-on-rails

Question

I have a small ruby application I wrote that's an anagram searcher. It's for learning ruby, but I would like to put it up online for personal use. I have some experience with Rails, and many here have recommended Sinatra. I'm fine with either, but I cannot find any information on how to use a text file instead of a database.
The application is quite simple, validates against a text file of a word list, then finds all anagrams. I have been assuming that this should be quite simple, but I'm stuck on importing that textfile into Rails (or Sinatra if i choose that way). In the Rails project, I have placed the textfile in the lib directory.
Unfortunately, even though the path appears to be correct in Rails, I get an error:
no such file to load -- /Users/court/Sites/cvtest/lib/english.txt
(cvtest is the name of the rails project)
Here is the code. It works great by itself:
file_path = '/Users/court/Sites/anagram/dictionary/english.txt'
input_string = gets.chomp
# validate input to list
if File.foreach(file_path) {|x| break x if x.chomp == input_string}
#break down the word
word = input_string.split(//).sort
# match word
anagrams = IO.readlines(file_path).partition{
|line| line.strip!
(line.size == word.size && line.split(//).sort == word)
}[0]
#list all words except the original
anagrams.each{ |matched_word| puts matched_word unless matched_word == input_string }
#display error if
else
puts "This word cannot be found in the dictionary"
end

Answer 1

Factor the actual functionality (finding the anagrams) into a method. Call that method from your Web app.
In Rails, you'd create a controller action that calls that method instead of ActiveRecord. In Sinatra, you'd just create a route that calls the method. Here's a Sinatra example:
get '/word/:input'
anagrams = find_anagrams(params[:input])
anagrams.join(", ")
end
Then, when you access the http://yourapp.com/word/pool, it will print "loop, polo".

Answer 2

I know the question is marked as answered, but I prefer the following, as it uses query parameters rather than path based parameters, which means you can pass the parameters in using a regular GET form submission:
require 'rubygems'
require 'sinatra'
def find_anagrams word
# your anagram method here
end
get '/anagram' do
#word = params['word']
#anagrams = find_anagrams #word if #word
haml :anagram
end
And the following haml (you could use whatever template language you prefer). This will give you an input form, and show the list of anagrams if a word has been provided and an anagram list has been generated:
%h1
Enter a word
%form{:action => "anagram"}
%input{:type => "text", :name => "word"}
%input{:type => "submit"}
- if #word
%h1
Anagrams of
&= #word
- if #anagrams
%ul
- #anagrams.each do |word|
%li&= word
- else
%p No anagrams found

Answer 3

With sinatra, you can do anything. These examples doesn't even require sinatra, you could roll your own rack interface thing.
require 'rubygems'
require 'sinatra'
require 'yaml'
documents = YAML::load_file("your_data.yml")
Or:
require 'rubygems'
require 'sinatra'
content = Dir[File.join(__DIR__, "content/*.textile)].map {|path|
content = RedCloth(File.read(path)).to_html
}
Etcetera.