how to write a RESTful filemanger?

Question

today i have direct a problem :P i just need some ideas... how do you would write a RESTful filemanager in rails?

i want to use a files controller which does all the operations with the files. now when i do it restful there are just some few functions:

• create (create a file/directory)
• destroy (delete a file/directory)
• index (list a directory)
• show (show properties of a file)
• edit (rename a file/directory)

now i dont know how to copy/move a file... and when i want a user to have several instances of that filemanager, how do i manage that he can be in different directories? (have different instances of my filemanager in one session)

can anyone just give me some hints? :P

Answer 1

You can define file as a resource in rails routing. Then you have your RESTful routes. It doesn't matter for rails if you have a file- or a database-resource. The RESTful routes are the same. The unique identifier for your files could be the unique filename: "/files/file.pdf".

I would suggest you to use an abstraction to perform operations on the filesystem (like an Object-Relational Mapping for database access). I could think of carrierwave for example. It handles file uploads and provides basic operations like delete/destroy. Also it allows you to change you storage volume (file, gridfx, amazon s3).

I'm not sure what you mean with different instances of a filemanager. It would be possible to define a file manager for each user. For instance with carrierwave you can define custom storage dirs:

# mount uploader in user class
class User
  mount_uploader :file, UserUploader
end

# define user uploader
class UserUploader < CarrierWave::Uploader::Base
  def store_dir
    # model = user object as the uploader
    # is mounted in the user class
    'public/uploads/#{model.id}'
  end
end

I hope you get an idea!