How to Pass a Large Array from one Action to Another

rubyonrails-talk
1

Good morning everybody, how are you?

Okay, this should be easy. I am generating a large array in one action, and I want to pass this array to another action when the user pushes a button.

@problems is a large array (about 2,000 items) that I need to pass to the action "buy_cards". What is the best way to do this? I'm pretty sure it's too big for a session, and I don't want to store it in DB, since I just need it temporarily:

<%= button_to "Buy Cars", :action => :buy_cars, :car_id => @file_id, :problems => @problems %>

Anyone know a good way to pass a large array from one action to another?

2

How about putting a serialized version of it as an attachment using a multipart-form? As long as you're using a POST in your form action there shouldn't be any set limit on the size of data that you're posting.

@problems.to_yaml (or @problems.to_json) should give you a textual format. Then in the receiving action de-serialize the yaml (or json).

Joe Peck wrote:

3

Joe Peck wrote:

Good morning everybody, how are you?

Okay, this should be easy. I am generating a large array in one action, and I want to pass this array to another action when the user pushes a button.

Anyone know a good way to pass a large array from one action to another?

I would recommend serializing it into a temp file on the server and reading it back out in the other action. You should be able to serialize it with "to_json", and just write it to a file. Then read it back into an array in the other action. Name the temp file relative to the user so you don't have to worry about a name collision, and then pass the path to the temp file in the session.

HTH, jp