Ectophile

Ectophile is an extension for Ecto models to instantly support file uploads.

Usage

Ectophile provides an attachment_fields/2 macro for your model which is used like:

defmodule MyApp.User do
  use Ectophile  #=> Note that this needs to be used before MyApp.Web so that the callbacks will work
  use MyApp.Web, :model

  schema "users" do
    field :email, :string

    attachment_fields :avatar
    timestamps
  end

  ...
end

attachment_fields/2 in the above example, defines two different fields which are:

• field :avatar, Ectophile.Type
• field :avatar_upload, :any, virtual: true

The :avatar field is where the path to the file in your filesystem and filename is saved. :avatar_upload is the field we'll use for file uploads.

Keep in mind that you will need to create the necessary migration to add the Ectophile fields to your model like so:

defmodule SampleMigration do
  use Ecto.Migration

  def change do
    create table(:users) do
      add :email
      add :avatar, :jsonb #=> The column we need for Ectophile's custom field
      timestamps
    end
  end
end

Also, set the :otp_app in your config like:

# config/config.exs
use Mix.Config

config :ectophile, otp_app: :yourapp

In your application's top-level supervisor's start/2 function, add the following to setup the directories where your files will be uploaded:

import Ectophile.Helpers

def start(_type, _args) do
  ensure_upload_paths_exist([MyApp.User]) #=> This creates all the required directories for your uploaded files
  ...
end

After doing the migrations and defining your model's attachment_fields, you can then add file upload field to your model's form like:

...

<div class="form-group">
  <%= label f, :avatar_upload, "Avatar" %>
  <%= file_input f, :avatar_upload, class: "form-control" %>
</div>

...

That's it!!! Now every time a user uploads a file and submits a form, that file is stored in a configurable location in your priv/static directory and a reference to that file is stored in your database.

In your template, you can then do:

<img alt="<%= @user.avatar %>" src="<%= static_path(@conn, Ectophile.Helpers.static_path(avatar)) %>">

Important links

• Documentation - to be published
• License