How to implement HTTParty in Ruby

In this article, you will learn how to use HTTParty in Ruby to make HTTP requests from your Ruby apps.

Why Use HTTParty?

Gems like HTTParty & Faraday prove that making HTTP requests can be fun & easy in Ruby.

You can easily install HTTParty to your Gemfile:

gem 'httparty'

And then run bundle install in your terminal to download the dependencies.

Making a Basic HTTP Request with HTTParty

The most basic request you can make with HTTParty is an HTTP GET request. You can do that with a single line of code:

HTTParty.get("www.example.com")

You can easily make other types of requests such as POST, PUT, & DELETE by using the post, put and delete methods.

For example, to send a POST request that contains JSON data you can do:

data = { user: { name: "John", age: 21 } }
HTTParty.post("www.example.com", body: data.to_json, headers: { "Content-Type" => "application/json" })

If you want to use Basic Auth, you can do that with the basic_auth option:

data = { user: { name: "John", age: 21 } }
HTTParty.post("www.example.com", basic_auth: {username: "jane", password: "doe"}, body: data.to_json, headers: { "Content-Type" => "application/json" })

In this case, the username is “jane” & the password is “doe”.

Parsing HTTP Response Data

By default, the HTTParty gem will parse the response body as JSON data, but you can also parse it as XML data using the xml method.

HTTParty.get("www.example.com").xml

Error Handling

One of the advantages of using an HTTP client is the ability to easily handle errors.

For example, you can catch an HTTP error as an exception:

begin
  HTTParty.get("www.example.com")
rescue HTTParty::Error => e
  puts e
end

You can also rescue different types of errors separately by catching them as different types of exceptions:

begin
  HTTParty.get("www.example.com")
rescue HTTParty::Error => e
  puts e
rescue StandardError => e
  puts e
end

This can be useful if you want to handle HTTP errors differently than other types of errors.

Using a Proxy

If you need to use a proxy, you can configure HTTParty to use a proxy by setting the http_proxy, and https_proxy environment variables.

ENV['http_proxy'] = "http://127.0.0.1:8888"
ENV['https_proxy'] = "http://127.0.0.1:8888"

HTTParty.get("www.example.com")

Using a Timeout

By default, HTTParty will timeout after 30 seconds, but you can change that by setting the default_timeout value:

HTTParty.default_timeout = 10

HTTParty.get("www.example.com")

Keep in mind that you should always handle timeouts as exceptions.

Summary

HTTParty makes HTTP requests fun & easy in Ruby. In this article, you’ve learned how to use it for making different types of requests, parsing responses, error handling, & using a proxy.

You should also check out the HTTParty documentation for more information about what you can do with it.

Take a look at our other posts:

• How To delete the first item in an array in ruby
• How to Delete a File in Ruby