Web Service API Design By Example

Developing for the web means, to a greater or lesser degree, being a productive citizen in a kingdom of online data exchange; and whether by formal design or organic, ad hoc growth, this means building an API.

Rails: Getting Youtube Video Information in XML

Here’s another little Rails code snippet for getting video details, this time from Youtube. The code simply retrieves an XML details object for a given video. Enjoy. . .

YOUTUBE_URL_REGEX = /(www.)?youtube\.com\/watch\?v=([^&]*)/i
url = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az-8Z1skhLs&feature=channel_page

begin
if YOUTUBE_URL_REGEX.match(url)
vid_id = YOUTUBE_URL_REGEX.match(resource_locator)[2]
youtube_url = "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/#{vid_id}"

response = Net::HTTP.get_response(URI.parse(youtube_url))
results = Hash.from_xml(response.body)

@description = results["entry"]["group"]["description"]
@thumbnail_url = results["entry"]["group"]["thumbnail"][0]["url"]
end
rescue Exception => exc
# DNS failed…
end

See also: Getting Vimeo Video [...]

Rails: Getting Vimeo Video Information in JSON

Here’s a little Rails code snippet, posted here for posterity or until Vimeo changes their developer API. The code simply retrieves a JSON details object for a given video. Enjoy. . .

VIMEO_URL_REGEX = /(www.)?vimeo\.com.*?\/(\d+?)$/
url = "http://www.vimeo.com/2233379"

begin
if VIMEO_REGEX.match(url)
vid_id = VIMEO_URL_REGEX.match(url)[2]
vimeo_url = "http://vimeo.com/api/v2/video/#{vid_id}.json"

response = Net::HTTP.get_response(URI.parse(vimeo_url))
results = JSON.parse(response.body)[0]

@description = results["description"]
@thumbnail_url = results["thumbnail_small"]
end
rescue Exception => exc
# DNS failed…
end