running curl on ruby on rails

Question

I have a rails application where a user can create the tickets.

Name of My application: tickets a user has to submit some information to create the ticket (name, seat_id, address, price, email).

when the user click on the Create button. It creates the ticket and submits the data into the mysql DB. which is working fine.

I actually want to run a curl script whenever a person clicks on the Create button. So that I can take the data (name, seat_id, address, price, email) and import it into redcap DB (another project).

this is the curl command:

# Set secret token specific to your REDCap project
TOKEN="YOUR_TOKEN"

# Set the url to the api (ex. https://YOUR_REDCAP_INSTALLATION/api/)
SERVICE="YOUR_API_URL"

# UPLOAD a flat csv record contain in file file (/path/to/my.csv) 
# Note the use of '<' to get curl to read in data from external file
curl    --form token=${TOKEN} \
        --form overwriteBehavior=normal \
        --form content=record  
        --form format=csv 
        --form type=flat \
        --form data="</path/to/my.csv" \
        ${SERVICE}

Here at the place of .csv file, I have to pass the variables value (name, seat_id, address, price, email)

tickets_controller.rb

  # POST /tickets
  # POST /tickets.json
def create

respond_to do |format|  
  @ticket = Ticket.new(ticket_params)

  if @ticket.save
    format.html { redirect_to @ticket, notice: 'Ticket was successfully created.' }
    format.json { render :show, status: :created, location: @ticket }

    # Set secret token specific to your REDCap project
    @TOKEN="YOUR_TOKEN"

    # Set the url to the api (ex. https://YOUR_REDCAP_INSTALLATION/api/)
    @SERVICE="YOUR_API_URL"

    # UPLOAD a flat csv record contain in file file (/path/to/my.csv) 
    # Note the use of '<' to get curl to read in data from external file
    system(curl    --form token=${@TOKEN} \
                    --form overwriteBehavior=normal \
                    --form content=record  
                    --form format=csv 
                    --form type=flat \
                    --form data="</path/to/my.csv" \
                        ${@SERVICE})
  else
    format.html { render :new }
    format.json { render json: @ticket.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
  end
end
end

# Use callbacks to share common setup or constraints between actions.
def set_ticket
  @ticket = Ticket.find(params[:id])
end

# Never trust parameters from the scary internet, only allow the white list through.
def ticket_params
  params.require(:ticket).permit(:name, :seat_id_seq, :address, :price_paid, :email_address,:attachment)
end

whenever I click on the submit button, I see this in the log file:

Started POST "/sparcformpages" for ::1 at 2016-12-21 14:42:32 -0500
Processing by SparcformpagesController#create as HTML
Parameters: {"utf8"=>"✓",   "authenticity_token"=>"8p9NtPkUn9C+YuG3hMQ1LgnKL/8BxEzXHCnV4S7qRNBd8Spwr+jX9Y7E3 qbLok/K4fx/mHFf7Eljo/2UqkHF3w==", 
"sparcformpage"=>{"record_id"=>"333", "BSMType"=>"Study Design/Development", "Description"=>"", 
"purposeOfStudy"=>"Government Grant Submission", "purposeOfOtherStudy"=>"", "studyDesignSupport"=>"", 
"grantNumber"=>"", "purposeOfDataAnalysis"=>"Manuscript Development", "purposeOfOtherAnalysis"=>"", 
"typesofAnalysis"=>"Analysis Plan Development", "otherTypesOfAnalysis"=>"", "scopeOfAnalyticSupport"=>"", 
"researchType"=>"Human", "IRBNumber"=>"", "IACUCNumber"=>"", "completionDate"=>"", "projectFundingStatus"=>"External funding with built-in BSM support", 
"chargeforStudy"=>"", "chargeForDataAnalysis"=>"", "chargeForOtherEffort"=>"", "projectTrainee"=>"Yes", "primaryMentor"=>"", "emailAddress"=>"",
 "alreadyCorresponded"=>"Yes", "preferenceOffaculty"=>"Dr. Marni Jacobs", "preferenceOfdataAnalyst"=>"Yao Cheng", 
"statusOfCollaboration"=>"ongoing"}, 
"commit"=>"Create Sparcformpage"}

Answer 1

You can run any system command using system as per the doc here: http://apidock.com/ruby/Kernel/system

Put your curl command into a shell script file and run it from the command line, passing in whatever data you need via the command-line.

However... consider that there's most likely a way to use some ruby library to access this other db (remote or not) and it might be easier to maintain that way.