Ruby:
Sending an HTTP request

How to:

Ruby makes it pretty easy to send HTTP requests. Here’s the quickest way with the Net::HTTP standard library.

require 'net/http'
require 'uri'

uri = URI('http://example.com')
response = Net::HTTP.get(uri)
puts response

This will output the HTML content of http://example.com.

You might want to post data too:

require 'net/http'
require 'uri'

uri = URI('http://example.com/api')
res = Net::HTTP.post_form(uri, 'key1' => 'value1', 'key2' => 'value2')
puts res.body

This sends a POST request with data and shows the response.

Deep Dive:

In the past, sending HTTP requests was clunkier, and you may have needed to use a gem like HTTParty. But Ruby’s built-in Net::HTTP library has come a long way. It now supports most things you’ll need.

But, Net::HTTP can be verbose. If your project needs more HTTP features or syntactic sugar, HTTParty or Faraday are great alternatives. These gems provide a more expressive API and can handle more complex scenarios like middleware or different adapters.

Fundamentally, sending an HTTP request with Ruby involves creating an HTTP client, setting up a request object with method, headers, and body if needed, then dispatching the request to receive a response.

HTTParty example:

require 'httparty'

response = HTTParty.get('http://example.com')
puts response.body

This does the same thing as Net::HTTP.get but with less configuration.

See Also:

For more detailed info, Ruby’s docs are super helpful:

• Net::HTTP: https://ruby-doc.org/stdlib/libdoc/net/http/rdoc/Net/HTTP.html
• HTTParty: https://github.com/jnunemaker/httparty
• Faraday: https://lostisland.github.io/faraday/

And if you’ve got a thick appetite for Ruby’s HTTP networking, take a gander over at:

• Ruby’s Open URI: https://ruby-doc.org/stdlib/libdoc/open-uri/rdoc/OpenURI.html
• WebMock for testing HTTP requests: https://github.com/bblimke/webmock