# Fwd: Announcing: New release of the Ruby Freebase API (0.0.1)

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-announcing-new-release-of-the-ruby-freebase-api-0-0-1/127985>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [February 3, 2008, 10:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-announcing-new-release-of-the-ruby-freebase-api-0-0-1/127985 "2008-02-03T22:00:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Chris\_Eppstein](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/f17d59/32.png) [@Chris\_Eppstein](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Chris_Eppstein)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2008, 10:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-announcing-new-release-of-the-ruby-freebase-api-0-0-1/127985/1 "2008-02-03T22:00:00Z")

</div>

The Ruby Freebase API currently provides read access to  
[http://www.freebase.com/](http://www.freebase.com/)  
.

This release includes:  
Gem support. This means installing is a snap if you already have ruby  
and gems installed on your system.  
JSON Parsing fix. The Ruby on Rails JSON parser was not compliant and  
failed on some freebase mql reads, JSON is now parsed using the JSON  
parser from [http://json.rubyforge.org/](http://json.rubyforge.org/)  
Unit test framework - support for caching responses as files so  
there’s no runtime requirement on the freebase service and changes to  
data will not break existing tests.

This library is still early ALPHA. The API will change, there’s going  
to be some bugs. Your help in any form is appreciated.

To Install:  
~ $ sudo gem install -y freebase  
Successfully installed freebase-0.0.1  
1 gem installed  
Installing ri documentation for freebase-0.0.1…  
Installing RDoc documentation for freebase-0.0.1…

You can then launch an interactive ruby shell to try it out:

chris:~ chris$ irb  
irb(main):001:0\> require ‘rubygems’  
=\> true  
irb(main):002:0\> require ‘freebase’  
=\> true  
irb(main):003:0\> (an\_artist =  
Freebase::Types::Music::Artist.find(:first)).name  
=\> “Blonde Redhead”  
irb(main):004:0\> an\_artist.albums.size  
=\> 17  
irb(main):005:0\> an\_artist.albums[2].name  
=\> “Fake Can Be Just as Good”  
irb(main):006:0\> an\_artist.albums[2].tracks.size  
=\> 8  
irb(main):007:0\> an\_artist.albums[2].tracks.first.name  
=\> “Kazuality”

Ruby on Rails support is still available, but it now requires the gem  
to be installed. To install the latest:

rails\_project $ ./script/plugin install  
[http://freebaseapi.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/plugins/rails/freebase](http://freebaseapi.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/plugins/rails/freebase)

- ./config/freebase.yml
- ./init.rb
- ./install.rb
- ./tasks/freebase\_tasks.rake
- ./uninstall.rb  
Installing: config/freebase.yml  
If you haven’t yet done so, please install the freebase gem:  
[sudo] gem install freebase

Enjoy!

- Chris Eppstein