How to delete the temporary files automatically in ruby-rails?

Question

Hi,

My Rails app has to process and generate PDF XFA files and send to the user/browser. Its working fine. But the issue is that before sending the file to the user, it creates 2 files in the rails tmp directory.

If 10 requests come to the pdf_controller, the number of the temp files in the tmp directory will double and it will eat up the space.

After searching around I thought that Sweeper will come to the rescue. But not much knowledge about Sweeper.

So, can anyone plz suggest which way to go?

Answer 1

You could use a cron task, that deletes the files every n minutes, or, you could order the deletion from the controller itself.

Answer 2

Tempfile will delete files when the object is finalized.

http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Tempfile.html

Example:

def get_pdf
  model = Model.find(params[:id])
  file = Tempfile.new
  model.to_pdf(file)
  send_file file.path, ...
end

I can provide a better example if you paste your code into your question.

Answer 3

Can someone provide a better example please. I don't want to create millions of temporary files that don't get destroyed.

Thanks