Ruby - iterate tasks with files - ruby

Question

I am struggling to iterate tasks with files in Ruby.
(Purpose of the program = every week, I have to save 40 pdf files off the school system containing student scores, then manually compare them to last week's pdfs and update one spreadsheet with every student who has passed their target this week. This is a task for a computer!)
I have converted a pdf file to text, and my program then extracts the correct data from the text files and turns each student into an array [name, score, house group]. It then checks each new array against the data in the csv file, and adds any new results.
My program works on a single pdf file, because I've manually typed in:
f = File.open('output\agb summer report.txt')
agb = []
f.each_line do |line|
agb.push line
end
But I have a whole folder of pdf files that I want to run the program on iteratively. I've also had problems when I try to write each result to a new-named file.
I've tried things with variables and code blocks, but I now don't think you can use a variable in that way?
Dir.foreach('output') do |ea|
f = File.open(ea)
agb = []
f.each_line do |line|
agb.push line
end
end
^ This doesn't work. I've also tried exporting the directory names to an array, and doing something like:
a.each do |ea|
var = '\'output\\' + ea + '\''
f = File.open(var)
agb = []
f.each_line do |line|
agb.push line
end
end
I think I'm fundamentally confused about the sorts of object File and Dir are? I've searched a lot and haven't found a solution yet. I am fairly new to Ruby.
Anyway, I'm sure this can be done - my current backup plan is to copy my program 40 times with different details, but that sounds absurd. Please offer thoughts?

Answer 1

You're very close. Dir.foreach() will return the name of the files whereas File.open() is going to want the path. A crude example to illustrate this:
directory = 'example_directory'
Dir.foreach(directory) do |file|
# Assuming Unix style filesystem, skip . and ..
next if file.start_with? '.'
# Simply puts the contents
path = File.join(directory, file)
puts File.read(path)
end

Answer 2

Use Globbing for File Lists
You need to use Dir#glob to get your list of files. For example, given three PDF files in /tmp/pdf, you collect them with a glob like so:
Dir.glob('/tmp/pdf/*pdf')
# => ["/tmp/pdf/1.pdf", "/tmp/pdf/2.pdf", "/tmp/pdf/3.pdf"]
Dir.glob('/tmp/pdf/*pdf').class
# => Array
Once you have a list of filenames, you can iterate over them with something like:
Dir.glob('/tmp/pdf/*pdf').each do |pdf|
text = %x(pdftotext "#{pdf}")
# do something with your textual data
end
If you're on a Windows system, then you might need a gem like pdf-reader or something else from Ruby Toolbox that suits you better to actually parse the PDF. Regardless, you should use globbing to create a file list; what you do after that depends on what kind of data the file actually holds. IO#read and descendants like File#read are good places to start.
Handling Text Files
If you're dealing with text files rather than PDF files, then something like this will get you started:
Dir.glob('/tmp/pdf/*txt').each do |text|
# Do something with your textual data. In this case, just
# dump the files to standard output.
p File.read(text)
end

Answer 3

You can use Dir.new("./") to get all the files in the current directory
so something like this should work.
file_names = Dir.new "./"
file_names.each do |file_name|
if file_name.end_with? ".txt"
f = File.open(file_name)
agb = []
f.each_line do |line|
agb.push line
end
end
end
btw, you can just use agb = f.to_a to convert the file contents into an array were each element is a line from the file.
file_names = Dir.new "./"
file_names.each do |file_name|
if file_name.end_with? ".txt"
f = File.open file_name
agb = f.to_a
# do whatever processing you need to do
end
end

Answer 4

if you assign your target folder like this /path/to/your/folder/*.txt it will only iterate over text files.
2.2.0 :009 > target_folder = "/home/ziya/Desktop/etc3/example_folder/*.txt"
=> "/home/ziya/Desktop/etc3/example_folder/*.txt"
2.2.0 :010 > Dir[target_folder].each do |texts|
2.2.0 :011 > puts texts
2.2.0 :012?> end
/home/ziya/Desktop/etc3/example_folder/ex4.txt
/home/ziya/Desktop/etc3/example_folder/ex3.txt
/home/ziya/Desktop/etc3/example_folder/ex2.txt
/home/ziya/Desktop/etc3/example_folder/ex1.txt
iteration over text files is ok
2.2.0 :002 > Dir[target_folder].each do |texts|
2.2.0 :003 > File.open(texts, 'w') {|file| file.write("your content\n")}
2.2.0 :004?> end
results
2.2.0 :008 > system ("pwd")
/home/ziya/Desktop/etc3/example_folder
=> true
2.2.0 :009 > system("for f in *.txt; do cat $f; done")
your content
your content
your content
your content