From: Gregory Brown <gregory.t.brown@...>
Date: 2009-12-15T11:03:29+09:00
Subject: Re: ActionMailer PDF attachment and Windows

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 1:56 PM, dkmd_nielsen <donvnielsen@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been struggling for a couple of days down with trying to attach a
> pdf file to an email using ActionMailer on Windows.  All the examples
> on the web I could find instructed me to use ":body => File.read
> (<filename>)" to do the attachment.  The attached file was always
> corrupt.  I attempted to simply copy the file using File.read
> (<filename>), and the copy too yielded a truncated file.
>
> What just now worked for me was a different body syntax.  What works
> is the following:  ":body => File.new(fattach,'rb').read()".  I don't
> exactly understand the significance of the of the difference.

When using Ruby 1.8 on Windows (and everywhere on Ruby 1.9 -- for a
different reason), if you want to work with binary files, File.read()
is never safe.   You need to tell Ruby you're working with a binary
file by using the "rb" access mode.   But you might consider doing it
this way:

File.open(filename, "rb") { |f| f.read }  so that your file handle is
closed properly.  On Ruby 1.9, File.binread(filename) can also be
used.

-greg