Ruby Dir.mkdir Usage - ruby

Question

I am pretty new to ruby and have a very simple ruby script that has the following purpose:
Read lines of file
Access jira instance using jira4r gem
Query jira instance for issue(s)
Create a directory using the issue key and issue summary
I've come to the conclusion after some tinkering that the Dir.mkdir command does not accept the object I am passing it as argument.
Findings:
If Dir.mkdir is passed a line, #{chompline}, from my textfile directory creation execute properly.
If Dir.mkdir is passed a string consisting of issue.key and issue.summary it chokes with the following error:
./readFile.rb:29:in `mkdir': No such file or directory - (Errno::ENOENT)
from ./readFile.rb:29
Based on point #1 and #2, it must be something about the string I create from issue key and summary.
I have the following theories/questions:
Is "#{keyPlusSummary}"the correct object type to pass into mkdir as argument ?
I believe it to be string, but perhaps I am assuming incorrectly.
Source:
#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'rubygems'
require 'jira4r'
require 'FileUtils'
jira = Jira4R::JiraTool.new(2, "http://jira.somejirainstance.com")
baseurl = jira.getServerInfo().baseUrl
puts "Base URL: " + baseurl , "\n"
jira.login("someUser", "somePassword")
file = File.new("awkOutput.txt", "r")
while (line = file.gets)
chompline = "#{line}".chomp!
issue = jira.getIssue("#{chompline}")
keyPlusSummary = "#{issue.key}"+"#{issue.summary}"
puts keyPlusSummary
Dir.mkdir "#{keyPlusSummary}"
end
file.close

Answer 1

It's a string, but you don't tell us what's in it.
# More canonical, both in var naming, and there's
# no need for concatenation in this case.
dir_name = "#{issue.key}#{issue.summary}"
Are you making the string "directory-name friendly"?
I would not use a JIRA issue summary as a directory name; IMO just the project/issue # would be enough. If you do use the summary, make it something that's directory-friendly by stripping out anything non-alphanumeric, and replacing spaces with underscores.

Answer 2

keyPlusSummary is a string, so it is of the right type. What may be the problem is slashes in the string. Like mkdir in UNIX, Dir.mkdir will not create parent directories for you, it will only create a single directory. If the key + summary includes a '/', then it will read it as a multi-level directory. You need to either escape the '/', or (better), use FileUtils.mkdir_p, or (best) do cleanup to replace ' ' with '_', and remove special characters that make using the directory harder :)
As an aside, your code doesn't need to have the interpolations it does:
#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'rubygems'
require 'jira4r'
require 'FileUtils'
jira = Jira4R::JiraTool.new(2, "http://jira.somejirainstance.com")
baseurl = jira.getServerInfo().baseUrl
puts "Base URL: #{baseurl}\n" #use it here!
jira.login("someUser", "somePassword")
File.new("awkOutput.txt", "r") do |file| #using the block form to ensure you close the file
while (line = file.gets)
chompline = line.chomp! #line is already a string, no need to interpolate
issue = jira.getIssue(chompline) #line is already a string, no need
keyPlusSummary = "#{issue.key}#{issue.summary}" #already interpolating, no need to add
puts keyPlusSummary
Dir.mkdir keyPlusSummary #already a string
end
end