How to put JSON response.body into string

Question

I am working on parsing JSON in Ruby. Can someone let me know how to take response.body and post it inside string.

Are there any gems available to sort this information via parsing?

require 'net/http'
require 'json'


uri = URI('https://api.wmata.com/StationPrediction.svc/json/GetPrediction/all')
uri.query = URI.encode_www_form({
   # Specify your subscription key
   'api_key' => '#',
})
request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri.request_uri)

# Basic Authorization Sample
# request.basic_auth 'username', 'password'


response = Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port, :use_ssl => uri.scheme == 'https') do |http|
    http.request(request)

 @data = response

end

Answer 1

You can convert JSON response to hash with:

hash_response = JSON.parse(response)

After that you can easily use hash in ruby functions.

Answer 2

The JSON gem is smart and makes it really easy to convert an object to JSON, or convert the JSON string back to an object. This is a simple round-trip example:

require 'json'

foo = {'a' => 1, 'b' => [2, 3]}
json_string = JSON[foo]
json_string # => "{\"a\":1,\"b\":[2,3]}"

bar = JSON[json_string] # => {"a"=>1, "b"=>[2, 3]}

bar == foo # => true

Note that JSON\[...\] senses whether the parameter is a string or a hash (or array). If it's the first it tries to convert the string to a hash or array, or, vice versa. From the documentation:

If object is string-like, parse the string and return the parsed result as a Ruby data structure. Otherwise generate a JSON text from the Ruby data structure object and return it.

You can use the to_json method if you'd like to convert an object also:

foo.to_json # => "{\"a\":1,\"b\":[2,3]}"

There are gotchas you have to be aware of using to_json as it will generate invalid JSON output if you don't give it an array or a hash:

'a'.to_json # => "\"a\""
1.to_json # => "1"

JSON.parse(...) can also be used to turn the string back to an object:

JSON.parse(json_string) # => {"a"=>1, "b"=>[2, 3]}

but I tend to use the shorter JSON[...].