title: Import Excel into Rails app
body: <p>I am creating a small rails app for personal use and would like to be able to upload excel files to later be validated and added to the database. I had this working previously with csv files, but this has since become impractical. </p>
  
  <p>Does anyone know of a tutorial for using the roo or spreadsheet gem to upload the file, display the contents to the user and then add to the database (after validating)?  I know this is quite specific, but I want to work through this step by step.</p>
  
  <p>All I have so far is an 'import' view:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;% form_for :dump, :url=&gt;{:controller=&gt;"students", :action=&gt;"student_import"}, :html =&gt; { :multipart =&gt; true } do |f| -%&gt;
      Select an Excel File :
      &lt;%= f.file_field :excel_file -%&gt;
      &lt;%= submit_tag 'Submit' -%&gt;
  &lt;% end -%&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But have no idea how to access this uploaded file in the controller. </p>
  
  <p>Any suggestions/help would be welcomed.
  Thanks</p>