Links issue when url not linked to a file

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hello everybody,

I'm trying to allow users to download a file from a server (like a Sharepoint one) with a link in my application.

Here is the view:

...       <td id="with_icon"><%= link_to image_tag("up.png", :alt => "Download the document", :border => 0, :id => "icon"), d.document_url %></td> ...

As you can see, i give an url to the link_to method. I would like to know if the link is valid or not. I mean if it return really a file or not.

I tried some methods like this one :

def remote_file_exist?(url)   res = Net::HTTP.get_response(URI.parse(URI.encode(url))) rescue SocketError   res end

This kind of method return an error for some valide urls and no error for some invalide urls.

Have you any idea or suggestion ?

2

Hello everybody,

I'm trying to allow users to download a file from a server (like a Sharepoint one) with a link in my application.

Here is the view:

...      <td id="with_icon"><%= link_to image_tag("up.png", :alt => "Download the document", :border => 0, :id => "icon"), d.document_url %></td> ...

As you can see, i give an url to the link_to method. I would like to know if the link is valid or not. I mean if it return really a file or not.

I tried some methods like this one :

def remote_file_exist?(url) res = Net::HTTP.get_response(URI.parse(URI.encode(url))) rescue SocketError res end

This kind of method return an error for some valide urls and no error for some invalide urls.

Have you any idea or suggestion ?

I don't have any code for you, but I do have an idea. Why not set up a cron/rake task to read all the URLs in your database at some interval, send a HEAD request to each of them to see if they resolve, and then mark your database with the result of this test. Keep checking -- don't just write off a bad response, because the server could have been having a senior moment.

Walter