---
title: "Create a file and all the folder structure"
slug: create-a-file-and-all-the-folder-structure
date_published: "2014-04-01T00:00:00.000Z"
date_updated: "2014-04-01T00:00:00.000Z"
tags: []
draft: false
summary: "Today I had to deal with a small problem in Rails 2.3.18. It was how to receive on an API a XML file via JSON with the content of the file..."
---

Today I had to deal with a small problem in Rails 2.3.18. It was how to receive on an API a XML file via JSON with the content of the file in Base64. In order to complete the task, I had to create the file, decode the content, write it in the file and move the file to another folder.

To create the file in `"{{RAILSROOT}}/tmp/aaa/"`, first we have to create the folder structure:

```ruby
file_dir = Rails.root.join(['tmp', 'aifmd', 'received_files'])
FileUtils.mkdir_p(file_dir)
```

`mkdir_p` will create all the folder structure if the folders do not exists yet.

Then, to create the file, we give it a name. In my case, just the current time in iso8601 format. We need to get rid of the colons (:), as they are not allowed as a character for a file name.

```ruby
# The parameter to iso8601 give you the number of decimals. To reduce possible collisions, I gave it 2 decimals.
file_name = "#{Time.now.iso8601(2).gsub(':','')}.xml"
# Open a new file with writing rights
file_path = [file_dir, file_name].join('/')
tmp_file = File.open(file_path, 'w+')
# Write on the file the decoded content of the xml.
decoded_file_content = Base64.decode64(params[:file_content])
tmp_file.write(decoded_file_content)
```

- [Documentation of Base64 (Ruby 1.8.7)](http://ruby-doc.org/stdlib-1.8.7/libdoc/base64/rdoc/Base64.html)
- [Documentation of File (Ruby 1.8.7)](http://ruby-doc.org/core-1.8.7/File.html)