using Rails MVC to handle non-HTTP requests

rubyonrails-talk
1

I'm starting to think through a webapp that allows multiple connection types (HTTP/web, email, SMS, Twitter, etc), and I'd like to combine as much functionality as possible. To that end, I've been thinking about how to integrate the other media with Rails' MVC. For each one, I'd like the input to be the same as the output (that is, if I send an SMS to the server, I get an SMS response).

I imagine creating fake MIME types for each one, and then having foo_view.html.erb, foo_view.sms.erb, foo_view.twitter.erb, etc.

Some problems: 1. I can't figure out how to dispatch to a controller. For example, if I have a daemon thread polling for email, how do I take the extracted email text and use it to set up the request for the controller? How do I then call the controller's handle method?

2. Are Rails controllers really abstract enough for this? They seem quite tied to the AbstractRequest object, which is certainly HTTP. (Email has no concept of GET vs PUT or a URL, and HTTP has no concept of a Subject.)

3. Would I be better off choosing a different framework? I love Rails, but am I trying to cut a cucumber with my golden hammer?

-Gaius

2

Instead of having the daemons try to directly invoke rails controllers, why not have them simply make http requests themselves? You can have controllers actions in the rails app to deal with your (inner <G>) daemons.

You could use ActiveRecord perhaps together with ActionMailer to define models which the daemon, running in the environment of your Rails app under script/runner say, could put incoming information into the db for the controllers to access.

Since you apparently want the daemon to respond in an appropriate way, it would then be responsible for transporting the result of the http request back to the requester via e-mail, sms, etc.