Ruby on Rails - Database or excel

rubyonrails-talk
1

I am currently doing a project in Ruby on Rails and I have been presented with a dilemma.

The dilemma is that the users of my system will be uploading an excel spreadsheet. The issue is should I just read straight from this excel spreadsheet into my front-end or should I load this spreadsheet into my MySQL database and then to my front-end.

I have asked numerous people about this issue and have researched on-line to no avail.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Stephen

2

I am currently doing a project in Ruby on Rails and I have been presented with a dilemma.

The dilemma is that the users of my system will be uploading an excel spreadsheet. The issue is should I just read straight from this excel spreadsheet into my front-end or should I load this spreadsheet into my MySQL database and then to my front-end.

What do you mean by reading into your frontend? It's not clear to me what the difference is between the two paths you are confronted with.

Fred.

3

I am currently doing a project in Ruby on Rails and I have been presented with a dilemma.

The dilemma is that the users of my system will be uploading an excel spreadsheet. The issue is should I just read straight from this excel spreadsheet into my front-end or should I load this spreadsheet into my MySQL database and then to my front-end.

Do you need to modify any of the data (or is it just to be displayed)?

Do you need to keep the data available in the long term?

Do you have to show multiple views of the data (so the spreadsheet would have to be interrogated multiple times)?

Is this a system that will be modified and extended over time?

If the answer to any of those is yes then extract the data from the spreadsheet into the database. If you are just providing a simple web based view on data from the spreadsheet then you could just extract it on the fly. I would advise using the database however. I think in the long run it would be simpler and easier to maintain.

Colin