Ruby on Rails Import CSV into MySQL - mysql

Question

Newbie question....
Trying to start a project in rails. I have different spreadsheets in csv format I'd like to import into the MySQL database to be able to manipulate the data.
After looking around on stackoverflow, Google, etc. I wrote a rake task requiring fastercsv to do the job. I keep getting errors so hopefully you can help.
...
Ok so I changed the code to use 'csv' vs 'fastercsv'...still getting errors. See below
New Code for Rake File (take 3):
require 'csv'
desc "Import gac from csv file"
task :import => [:environment] do
file = "gac.csv"
CSV.foreach(file, :headers => true) do |row|
Institution.create({
:institution_name => row[0],
:website => row[1],
:email => row[2],
:category_1 => row[3],
:category_2 => row[4],
:category_3 => row[5],
:category_4 => row[6],
:category_5 => row[7],
:category_6 => row[8],
:category_7 => row[9],
:category_8 => row[10],
:category_9 => row[11],
:category_10 => row[12],
:category_11 => row[13],
:institution_description => row[14]
})
end
end
Error Codes:
Daves-MacBook-Pro:vendor dave$ rake import --trace
** Invoke import (first_time)
** Invoke environment (first_time)
** Execute environment
** Execute import
rake aborted!
invalid byte sequence in UTF-8
/Users/dave/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p0/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1855:in `sub!'
/Users/dave/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p0/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1855:in `block in shift'
/Users/dave/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p0/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1849:in `loop'
/Users/dave/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p0/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1849:in `shift'
/Users/dave/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p0/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1791:in `each'
/Users/dave/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p0/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1208:in `block in foreach'
/Users/dave/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p0/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1354:in `open'
/Users/dave/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p0/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1207:in `foreach'
/Users/dave/rails_projects/vendor/lib/tasks/import.rake:8:in `block in <top (required)>'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:205:in `call'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:205:in `block in execute'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:200:in `each'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:200:in `execute'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:158:in `block in invoke_with_call_chain'
/Users/dave/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p0/lib/ruby/1.9.1/monitor.rb:211:in `mon_synchronize'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:151:in `invoke_with_call_chain'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:144:in `invoke'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:116:in `invoke_task'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:94:in `block (2 levels) in top_level'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:94:in `each'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:94:in `block in top_level'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:133:in `standard_exception_handling'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:88:in `top_level'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:66:in `block in run'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:133:in `standard_exception_handling'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:63:in `run'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/bin/rake:33:in `<top (required)>'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/bin/rake:19:in `load'
/Users/dave/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/bin/rake:19:in `<main>'
Tasks: TOP => import

Answer 1

lib/tasks/import.rake
require 'csv'
desc "Import gac from csv file"
task :import => [:environment] do
file = "vender/gac.csv"
CSV.foreach(file, :headers => true) do |row|
Putthemodelnamehere.create ({
:columnnamewhatever => row[1],
:columnname => row[2],
:columnname => row[4]
})
end
end
Then just run rake import or bundle exec rake import. Hope this helps (this isn't using fastercsv but this is the solution I'd recommend.)

Answer 2

Make sure that you have the Institution model class defined in app/models and/or make sure that you have run the db migration(s) (rake db:migrate) to create the institutions table - assuming you used a generator (or scaffold) to create the model.

Answer 3

The errors you are getting are probably because there is something in your csv that is not properly encoded for UTF-8.
One way of dealing with that would be to force the encoding. You could do the following:
For each association you have above, do this instead:
:category_1 => row[3].encode("UTF-8", replace: ' '),
Hopefully that will work for you.