Question

I want to asynchronously query the Foursquare API, which currently does not allow for the old $.get(). My short term solution is to make a Helper that just GETs the data like so:

def foursquare_info_for(venue_id)
    res = Net::HTTP.get_response("api.foursquare.com", "/v1/venue.json?vid=#{venue_id}")
    data = JSON.parse(res.body)
    info = Hash.new
    info["mayor_name"] = "#{data['venue']['stats']['mayor']['user']['firstname']} #{data['venue']['stats']['mayor']['user']['lastname']}"
    info["mayor_photo_src"] = "#{data['venue']['stats']['mayor']['user']['photo']}"
    info["checkins"] = "#{data['venue']['stats']['checkins']}"
    info
end

That works, but I’d rather make this a proxy that I can get to with a jQuery AJAX request after the page loads to speed things up a bit. I’m pretty sure this helper is close to what I need to do to get a proxy working, but I’m not sure where I need to put the proxy JSON on my side in order to be able to grab it with jQuery.

Am I on the right track for creating the proxy with net/http?

Where do I put the proxy on my side so that I can access it with a jQuery GET?

Answer 1

I think using Net::HTTP is good enough for this.

I would make a class for it. Something like:

class FoursquareInfo < Struct.new(:venue_id)

  def info
    { :mayor_name => mayour_name, :mayor_photo_src => mayor_photo_src, :checkins => checkins }
  end

  def mayor_name
    "#{mayor_firstname} #{mayor_lastname}"
  end

  def mayor_firstname
    mayor["firstname"]
  end

  def mayor
    stats["mayor"]["user"]
  end

  def stats
    data["venue"]["stats"]
  end

  def data
    @data ||= JSON.parse(response.body)
  end

  def response
    Net::HTTP.get_response("api.foursquare.com", "/v1/venue.json?vid=#{venue_id}")
  end

  # etc...

end

And from a controller:

class FoursquareInfosController < ApplicationController
  def show
    render :json => FoursquareInfo.new(params[:id]).info
  end
end