From: Alex Gutteridge <alexg@...>
Date: 2013-01-19T01:02:40+09:00
Subject: Re: Adding file directory automatically

On 18.01.2013 14:28, Adam Kennedy wrote:
> Yeah thanks Alex for all your help!
>
> After looking at your code, it worked fine. Brought up the correct
> information and also enabled me to bid on an item. However, I tried
> adding an if function too look something like this:
>
> if item == 'david'
> files = {'david' => '../Ablums/david.txt'}
> end
>
> As you can see, I've changed the location of the files and also the
> value from the form is also lowercase d for david.
>
> The reason I am trying to do this is that I have 12 text files which
> hold different information about music Albums, I need a function go 
> do
> something like this:
>
> if item == form value
> change files to {'david' => '../Albums/david.txt'}
> else
> if item == form value
> change files to {'asher' => ../Albums/david.txt'}
> end
>
> (sorry for the pseudo)
>
> So I need this function to go through 12 different item names and
> depending on which one was submitted through the form it needs to 
> open a
> different file.
>
> I keep receiving this error from my error_logs:
> `initialize': can't convert nil into String (TypeError), referer:
> http://localhost:10000/cgi-bin/david.cgi
>
> on line 14 where this is occuring, the line is File.open(files[item])
>
> So basically it seems that my function is being skipped to line 14 
> then
> it can't find the 'files' and stops working. I know this is alot of
> writing and i appreciate the help alot. If you have any idea of what 
> is
> going I would love to know :)
>
> Adam K

I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the idea behind my 
code. Instead of a series of hard-coded if/else statements don't you 
just need a single completely filled out 'files' Hash with separate 
files for each album? E.g:

files = {'david' => '../Albums/david.txt',
          'asher' => '../Albums/asher.txt',
          'snoop' => '../Albums/snoop.txt',
          'kennyg' => '../Albums/kenny.txt',
          'theknife' => '../Albums/theknife.txt'}

Then the

File.open(files[item])

line will open the correct file based on the item given.

-- 
Alex Gutteridge