What's the canonical way of using “helper” programs inside a controller action?

Question

I'm writing a Rails app that takes a text file upload from a user, manipulates it, and redisplays it. The manipulation would take place in the create action. I have the program that manipulates it in another file. I don't know what the correct pattern is for linking these things together.

My questions:

1.) Where in the directory are helper programs like these supposed to be stored? Is there a certain way these should be used from the controller?

2.) Is it a good idea to put these kinds of things in background jobs, or are those just for recurring tasks/accessing services that aren't a part of the app?

Thanks!

Answer 1

If you want to access the function in just one controller, its probably best to simply place it inside that specific controller as a private method, for example:

private def myFunction // manipulate file end

You could also put it in your application_controller.rb, in which case the function would be available to all of your controllers, as a protected method.

Not completely sure, but I don't think I would put it in a background job because the function is only called when a user uploads a file.