File size of web-based flv. Reading some bytes from a web-based file

ruby-talk
1

This is such a noobie question.

I have a file, http:// ... /One-minute-commercial-027.flv (I can't enter the name because the email gets rejected with a 5.7.1 as spam, apparently.

I want to do two simple things:

1) I want to get the file size. Please note that File.size() does not seem to work for me for a web-based file but does work for a local file.

C:\Users\Ralph>irb
irb(main):001:0> File.size('c:/RailsInstaller/Sites/ultradedup002/app/views/usage/VideoTutorials.html.haml')
=> 32406
irb(main):002:0> File.size('http:// ... /One-minute-commercial-027.flv')
Errno::EINVAL: Invalid argument - http:// something /One-minute-commercial-027.flv
        from (irb):2:in `size'
        from (irb):2
        from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.2/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'
irb(main):003:0>

2) I want to read a few hundred bytes from the beginning of the file so as to pick up the flv's time duration.

Are there Ruby facilities to do this?

Ralph Shnelvar