What SHOULD I be seeing to know this code has done what it was supposed to? - ruby

Question

I am doing the EventManager tutorial from Jumpstart Labs. Originally I could not get it my .rb file to read a .erb file, and I think I may have solved that, but I am not sure as I do not know what I SHOULD be seeing if all is running correctly and unfortunately the tutorial doesn't tell you. Here is my original question
Now after a simple change, I am no longer getting the error - but I am also not getting any indication that the code is working as expected. The tutorial says that this code should be creating a new directory and storing a copy of each 'thank you' letter into a file called 'output' in that new directory. But when I run it all I see is the => EventManager initialized from the terminal, which tells me that my .rb is being read and (I think) that the .erb is finally being read...but I do not see any new directories/files in the file structure, nor any indication that anything was created - so I can't tell if it is actually doing anything.
I am kind of expecting to see some kind of message telling me the directory has been created, perhaps with a file path or something.
I have never done anything like this and I'm not sure what I should be seeing...can anyone tell me how I would know that this code is preforming as expected? And if it is not, why?
require "csv"
require "sunlight/congress"
require "erb"
Sunlight::Congress.api_key = "e179a6973728c4dd3fb1204283aaccb5"
def save_thank_you_letters(id, form_letter)
Dir.mkdir("output") unless Dir.exists? ("output")
filename = "output/thanks_#{id}.html"
File.open(filename, 'w') do |file|
file.puts form_letter
end
end
def legislators_by_zipcode(zipcode)
legislators = Sunlight::Congress::Legislator.by_zipcode(zipcode)
end
def clean_zipcode(zipcode)
zipcode.to_s.rjust(5,"0")[0..4]
end
puts "EventManager initialized."
contents = CSV.open "event_attendees.csv", headers: true, header_converters: :symbol
template_letter = File.read( "event_manager/form_letter.erb")
erb_template = ERB.new template_letter
contents.each do |row|
id = row[0]
name = row[:first_name]
zipcode = clean_zipcode(row[:zipcode])
legislators = legislators_by_zipcode(zipcode)
form_letter = erb_template.result(binding)
save_thank_you_letters(id, form_letter)
end

Answer 1

I've (ever so slightly) modified your save_thank_you_letters method to spit out some helpful information as it writes files:
def save_thank_you_letters(id, form_letter)
Dir.mkdir("output") unless Dir.exists? ("output")
filename = "output/thanks_#{id}.html"
File.open(filename, 'w') do |file|
file.puts form_letter
puts "Wrote ID: #{id} to #{filename}"
end
end
The line puts "Wrote ID: #{id} to #{filename}" will print the ID and file path of the message it has written. You can place additional puts "Your text here..." throughout your Ruby logic to print more information to the console as you see fit.
Side note: in general, it's a super bad idea to post your personal API keys to any public forums. If this key is private/unique to you, delete it and request a new one. Anyone can now impersonate your account at Sunlight Labs.