dir = File.expand_path(File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), '..', 'lib')) require File.join(dir, 'httparty') # Take note of the "; 1" at the end of the following line. It's required only if # running this in IRB, because IRB will try to inspect the variable named # "request", triggering the exception. request = HTTParty.get 'https://rubygems.org/api/v1/versions/doesnotexist.json' ; 1 # Check an exception due to parsing the response # because HTTParty evaluate the response lazily begin request.inspect # This would also suffice by forcing the request to be parsed: # request.parsed_response rescue StandardError => e puts "Rescued #{e.inspect}" end