https:\/\/github.com\/yob\/pdf-reader<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nUsing this Gem, we can read the PDF and put it into a string format and then extract the data we need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After installing the GEM, your script will start with<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#!\/usr\/bin\/env ruby\nrequire 'pdf-reader'<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nPart Two: Counting the (Report) Cards<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nSince we have a folder full of PDFs, we need to read the folder and get a count of the PDF files in the folder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\ntheCount = Dir.glob('*.pdf').count\nputs \"there are \" + Dir.glob('*.pdf').count + \" files to e-mail\"<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nI like to toss in friendly put<\/strong> messages so when things go horribly wrong, you get some indication of where it broke.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPart Three: Iterate thru the folder<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\nDir.glob('*.pdf') do |rb_pdf|\n\n# lots of Ruby Magic! \n\nend<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nThis nifty line says, \u201cRead the directory, looking ONLY at files that\n end in .pdf and call the elements \u201crb_pdf\u201d. As you go thru the elements\n one by one, do stuff to them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The stuff part is coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part Four: Read the file!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\nreader = PDF::Reader.new(rb_pdf)<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nThis is where the GEM pdf-reader comes in. It will read the file element \u201crb_pdf\u201d and creates an object called \u201creader\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Object \u201creader\u201d has a number of elements, but we are most interested in the text of the object.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nlongString = page.text<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nNow that the ENTIRE report card is a string, we just need to find the\n student number in that string data so we can generate the email \naddress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But wait, how to find the number in that haystack of data?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part Five: Oh yeah, it\u2019s REGEX time!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nRegular Expressions<\/em>, or regex, is a great way to find most \nanything in an ocean of data, but it has a brutal learning curve and \nit\u2019s very unforgiving to newbies. There are lots of great resources and \ntools online to help you with Regex, I suggest you use them.<\/p>\n\n\n\nI know the student number is the only 6 digit number in the PDF so I\u2019ll look for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nstudentNumber = longString[\/\\b\\d{6}\\b\/] \n#returns the six digit number for emailing\neMailTarget = studentNumber + '@theSchool.edu'<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nPart Six: Mailing ain\u2019t easy<\/strong>
\nSo, you test the code and it all works great\u2026 but how to mail?<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis was the hardest part, and your milage may vary depending on the mail server configuration where you are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You might need to install the mail Gem, depending on where you are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nrequire 'mail' # ruby mail library. https:\/\/github.com\/mikel\/mail\nrequire 'openssl' #sometimes, Outlook just makes you crazy...\n#Sending via Outlook\n\n Mail.defaults do\n delivery_method :smtp, { \n :address => 'mail.theSchool.edu',\n :port => 587,\n :domain => 'theSchool.edu',\n :user_name => 'theSchool\/poorTeacher',\n :password => 'summerVacation',\n :authentication => :login,\n :enable_starttls_auto => true,\n :openssl_verify_mode => OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_NONE \n }\n \n end\n \n # send test message\n Mail.deliver do\n \n from 'poorTeacher@sts.theSchool.edu'\n to eMailTarget\n subject 'Report Card'\n body 'Congratulations on getting a report card'\n add_file :filename => rb_pdf\n end\n \n puts \"mailed to \" + eMailTarget \n # end of mailer part<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nSummary<\/strong>
\nSo what have we learned?<\/p>\n\n\n\n- If you are doing the same thing 10 or 20 times over, it means a script should be doing it.<\/li>
- You can read pdfs using a Ruby Gem.<\/li>
- Regex is wicked powerful and can be wicked hard to figure out.<\/li>
- Outlook can drive you crazy if you are trying to automate something.<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A friend of mine came to me with interesting situation. He was a teacher at a school where the student\u2019s email…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ruby","wpcat-5-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iheinrich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iheinrich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iheinrich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iheinrich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iheinrich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/iheinrich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51,"href":"https:\/\/iheinrich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions\/51"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iheinrich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iheinrich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iheinrich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iheinrich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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