Making JSON API calls within Rails app

Question

We have deployed an instance of Wordpress and have installed a JSON API plug in

Using this plug-in you can make simple HTTP GET request like:

http://www.example.org/?json=get_recent_posts
http://www.example.org/?json=get_post&post_id=47
http://www.example.org/?json=get_tag_posts&tag_slug=banana

And a response comes back in JSON:

{
"status": "ok",
"count": 1,
"count_total": 1,
"pages": 1,
"posts": [
{...}}

My question is how should I go about making these types of requests (and then parsing the returned JSON) in my Rails app. I was about to get started just writing something from scratch but I imagine there's some good existing tools out there to manage something like this. Basically I've never attempted connecting to an API when a Ruby-wrapper wasn't already available. Can you help a noob with how to get started?

Answer 1

It looks like HTTParty is probably your best case for something like this. I think it'll be an easy way for you to get started and handles the JSON for you easily.

Add 'httparty' to your Gemfile and bundle.

recent_posts = HTTParty.get "http://www.example.org/?json=get_recent_posts"
puts recent_posts.status, recent_posts.count

recent_posts.posts.each do |post|
  puts post.title #guessing
end