# REST Client -- simple DSL for accessing HTTP and REST resources [![Gem Downloads](https://img.shields.io/gem/dt/rails.svg)](https://rubygems.org/gems/rest-client) [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/rest-client/rest-client.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/rest-client/rest-client) [![Code Climate](https://codeclimate.com/github/rest-client/rest-client.svg)](https://codeclimate.com/github/rest-client/rest-client) [![Inline docs](http://inch-ci.org/github/rest-client/rest-client.svg?branch=master)](http://www.rubydoc.info/github/rest-client/rest-client/master) A simple HTTP and REST client for Ruby, inspired by the Sinatra's microframework style of specifying actions: get, put, post, delete. * Main page: https://github.com/rest-client/rest-client * Mailing list: https://groups.io/g/rest-client ### New mailing list We have a new email list for announcements, hosted by Groups.io. * Subscribe on the web: https://groups.io/g/rest-client * Subscribe by sending an email: mailto:rest-client+subscribe@groups.io * Open discussion subgroup: https://groups.io/g/rest-client+discuss The old Librelist mailing list is *defunct*, as Librelist appears to be broken and not accepting new mail. The old archives are still up, but have been imported into the new list archives as well. http://librelist.com/browser/rest.client ## Requirements MRI Ruby 2.0 and newer are supported. Alternative interpreters compatible with 2.0+ should work as well. Earlier Ruby versions such as 1.8.7, 1.9.2, and 1.9.3 are no longer supported. These versions no longer have any official support, and do not receive security updates. The rest-client gem depends on these other gems for usage at runtime: * [mime-types](http://rubygems.org/gems/mime-types) * [netrc](http://rubygems.org/gems/netrc) * [http-cookie](https://rubygems.org/gems/http-cookie) There are also several development dependencies. It's recommended to use [bundler](http://bundler.io/) to manage these dependencies for hacking on rest-client. ### Upgrading to rest-client 2.0 from 1.x Users are encouraged to upgrade to rest-client 2.0, which cleans up a number of API warts and wrinkles, making rest-client generally more useful. Usage is largely compatible, so many applications will be able to upgrade with no changes. Overview of significant changes: * requires Ruby >= 2.0 * `RestClient::Response` objects are a subclass of `String` rather than a Frankenstein monster. And `#body` or `#to_s` return a true `String` object. * cleanup of exception classes, including new `RestClient::Exceptions::Timeout` * improvements to handling of redirects: responses and history are properly exposed * major changes to cookie support: cookie jars are used for browser-like behavior throughout * encoding: Content-Type charset response headers are used to automatically set the encoding of the response string * HTTP params: handling of GET/POST params is more consistent and sophisticated for deeply nested hash objects, and `ParamsArray` can be used to pass ordered params * improved proxy support with per-request proxy configuration, plus the ability to disable proxies set by environment variables * default request headers: rest-client sets `Accept: */*` and `User-Agent: rest-client/...` See [history.md](./history.md) for a more complete description of changes. ## Usage: Raw URL Basic usage: ```ruby require 'rest-client' RestClient.get(url, headers={}) RestClient.post(url, payload, headers={}) ``` In the high level helpers, only POST, PATCH, and PUT take a payload argument. To pass a payload with other HTTP verbs or to pass more advanced options, use `RestClient::Request.execute` instead. More detailed examples: ```ruby require 'rest-client' RestClient.get 'http://example.com/resource' RestClient.get 'http://example.com/resource', {params: {id: 50, 'foo' => 'bar'}} RestClient.get 'https://user:password@example.com/private/resource', {accept: :json} RestClient.post 'http://example.com/resource', {param1: 'one', nested: {param2: 'two'}} RestClient.post "http://example.com/resource", {'x' => 1}.to_json, {content_type: :json, accept: :json} RestClient.delete 'http://example.com/resource' >> response = RestClient.get 'http://example.com/resource' => >> response.code => 200 >> response.cookies => {"Foo"=>"BAR", "QUUX"=>"QUUUUX"} >> response.headers => {:content_type=>"text/html; charset=utf-8", :cache_control=>"private" ... } >> response.body => "\n\n\n Example Domain\n\n ..." RestClient.post( url, { :transfer => { :path => '/foo/bar', :owner => 'that_guy', :group => 'those_guys' }, :upload => { :file => File.new(path, 'rb') } }) ``` ## Passing advanced options The top level helper methods like RestClient.get accept a headers hash as their last argument and don't allow passing more complex options. But these helpers are just thin wrappers around `RestClient::Request.execute`. ```ruby RestClient::Request.execute(method: :get, url: 'http://example.com/resource', timeout: 10) RestClient::Request.execute(method: :get, url: 'http://example.com/resource', ssl_ca_file: 'myca.pem', ssl_ciphers: 'AESGCM:!aNULL') ``` You can also use this to pass a payload for HTTP verbs like DELETE, where the `RestClient.delete` helper doesn't accept a payload. ```ruby RestClient::Request.execute(method: :delete, url: 'http://example.com/resource', payload: 'foo', headers: {myheader: 'bar'}) ``` Due to unfortunate choices in the original API, the params used to populate the query string are actually taken out of the headers hash. So if you want to pass both the params hash and more complex options, use the special key `:params` in the headers hash. This design may change in a future major release. ```ruby RestClient::Request.execute(method: :get, url: 'http://example.com/resource', timeout: 10, headers: {params: {foo: 'bar'}}) ➔ GET http://example.com/resource?foo=bar ``` ## Multipart Yeah, that's right! This does multipart sends for you! ```ruby RestClient.post '/data', :myfile => File.new("/path/to/image.jpg", 'rb') ``` This does two things for you: - Auto-detects that you have a File value sends it as multipart - Auto-detects the mime of the file and sets it in the HEAD of the payload for each entry If you are sending params that do not contain a File object but the payload needs to be multipart then: ```ruby RestClient.post '/data', {:foo => 'bar', :multipart => true} ``` ## Usage: ActiveResource-Style ```ruby resource = RestClient::Resource.new 'http://example.com/resource' resource.get private_resource = RestClient::Resource.new 'https://example.com/private/resource', 'user', 'pass' private_resource.put File.read('pic.jpg'), :content_type => 'image/jpg' ``` See RestClient::Resource module docs for details. ## Usage: Resource Nesting ```ruby site = RestClient::Resource.new('http://example.com') site['posts/1/comments'].post 'Good article.', :content_type => 'text/plain' ``` See `RestClient::Resource` docs for details. ## Exceptions (see http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html) - for result codes between `200` and `207`, a `RestClient::Response` will be returned - for result codes `301`, `302` or `307`, the redirection will be followed if the request is a `GET` or a `HEAD` - for result code `303`, the redirection will be followed and the request transformed into a `GET` - for other cases, a `RestClient::ExceptionWithResponse` holding the Response will be raised; a specific exception class will be thrown for known error codes - call `.response` on the exception to get the server's response ```ruby >> RestClient.get 'http://example.com/nonexistent' Exception: RestClient::NotFound: 404 Not Found >> begin RestClient.get 'http://example.com/nonexistent' rescue RestClient::ExceptionWithResponse => e e.response end => ``` ### Other exceptions While most exceptions have been collected under `RestClient::RequestFailed` aka `RestClient::ExceptionWithResponse`, there are a few quirky exceptions that have been kept for backwards compatibility. RestClient will propagate up exceptions like socket errors without modification: ```ruby >> RestClient.get 'http://localhost:12345' Exception: Errno::ECONNREFUSED: Connection refused - connect(2) for "localhost" port 12345 ``` RestClient handles a few specific error cases separately in order to give better error messages. These will hopefully be cleaned up in a future major release. `RestClient::ServerBrokeConnection` is translated from `EOFError` to give a better error message. `RestClient::SSLCertificateNotVerified` is raised when HTTPS validation fails. Other `OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError` errors are raised as is. ### Redirection By default, rest-client will follow HTTP 30x redirection requests. __New in 2.0:__ `RestClient::Response` exposes a `#history` method that returns a list of each response received in a redirection chain. ```ruby >> r = RestClient.get('http://httpbin.org/redirect/2') => # see each response in the redirect chain >> r.history => [, ] # see each requested URL >> r.request.url => "http://httpbin.org/get" >> r.history.map {|x| x.request.url} => ["http://httpbin.org/redirect/2", "http://httpbin.org/relative-redirect/1"] ``` #### Manually following redirection To disable automatic redirection, set `:max_redirects => 0`. __New in 2.0:__ Prior versions of rest-client would raise `RestClient::MaxRedirectsReached`, with no easy way to access the server's response. In 2.0, rest-client raises the normal `RestClient::ExceptionWithResponse` as it would with any other non-HTTP-20x response. ```ruby >> RestClient::Request.execute(method: :get, url: 'http://httpbin.org/redirect/1') => RestClient::Response 200 "{\n "args":..." >> RestClient::Request.execute(method: :get, url: 'http://httpbin.org/redirect/1', max_redirects: 0) RestClient::Found: 302 Found ``` To manually follow redirection, you can call `Response#follow_redirection`. Or you could of course inspect the result and choose custom behavior. ```ruby >> RestClient::Request.execute(method: :get, url: 'http://httpbin.org/redirect/1', max_redirects: 0) RestClient::Found: 302 Found >> begin RestClient::Request.execute(method: :get, url: 'http://httpbin.org/redirect/1', max_redirects: 0) rescue RestClient::ExceptionWithResponse => err end >> err => # >> err.response => RestClient::Response 302 "> err.response.headers[:location] => "/get" >> err.response.follow_redirection => RestClient::Response 200 "{\n "args":..." ``` ## Result handling The result of a `RestClient::Request` is a `RestClient::Response` object. __New in 2.0:__ `RestClient::Response` objects are now a subclass of `String`. Previously, they were a real String object with response functionality mixed in, which was very confusing to work with. Response objects have several useful methods. (See the class rdoc for more details.) - `Response#code`: The HTTP response code - `Response#body`: The response body as a string. (AKA .to_s) - `Response#headers`: A hash of HTTP response headers - `Response#raw_headers`: A hash of HTTP response headers as unprocessed arrays - `Response#cookies`: A hash of HTTP cookies set by the server - `Response#cookie_jar`: New in 1.8 An HTTP::CookieJar of cookies - `Response#request`: The RestClient::Request object used to make the request - `Response#history`: New in 2.0 If redirection was followed, a list of prior Response objects ```ruby RestClient.get('http://example.com') ➔ begin RestClient.get('http://example.com/notfound') rescue RestClient::ExceptionWithResponse => err err.response end ➔ ``` ### Response callbacks A block can be passed to the RestClient method. This block will then be called with the Response. Response.return! can be called to invoke the default response's behavior. ```ruby # Don't raise exceptions but return the response RestClient.get('http://example.com/resource'){|response, request, result| response } ➔ 404 Resource Not Found | text/html 282 bytes # Manage a specific error code RestClient.get('http://my-rest-service.com/resource'){ |response, request, result, &block| case response.code when 200 p "It worked !" response when 423 raise SomeCustomExceptionIfYouWant else response.return!(request, result, &block) end } # Follow redirections for all request types and not only for get and head # RFC : "If the 301, 302 or 307 status code is received in response to a request other than GET or HEAD, # the user agent MUST NOT automatically redirect the request unless it can be confirmed by the user, # since this might change the conditions under which the request was issued." RestClient.get('http://my-rest-service.com/resource'){ |response, request, result, &block| if [301, 302, 307].include? response.code response.follow_redirection(request, result, &block) else response.return!(request, result, &block) end } ``` ## Non-normalized URIs If you need to normalize URIs, e.g. to work with International Resource Identifiers (IRIs), use the addressable gem (http://addressable.rubyforge.org/api/) in your code: ```ruby require 'addressable/uri' RestClient.get(Addressable::URI.parse("http://www.詹姆斯.com/").normalize.to_str) ``` ## Lower-level access For cases not covered by the general API, you can use the `RestClient::Request` class, which provides a lower-level API. You can: - specify ssl parameters - override cookies - manually handle the response (e.g. to operate on it as a stream rather than reading it all into memory) See `RestClient::Request`'s documentation for more information. ## Shell The restclient shell command gives an IRB session with RestClient already loaded: ```ruby $ restclient >> RestClient.get 'http://example.com' ``` Specify a URL argument for get/post/put/delete on that resource: ```ruby $ restclient http://example.com >> put '/resource', 'data' ``` Add a user and password for authenticated resources: ```ruby $ restclient https://example.com user pass >> delete '/private/resource' ``` Create ~/.restclient for named sessions: ```ruby sinatra: url: http://localhost:4567 rack: url: http://localhost:9292 private_site: url: http://example.com username: user password: pass ``` Then invoke: ```ruby $ restclient private_site ``` Use as a one-off, curl-style: ```ruby $ restclient get http://example.com/resource > output_body $ restclient put http://example.com/resource < input_body ``` ## Logging To enable logging you can: - set RestClient.log with a Ruby Logger, or - set an environment variable to avoid modifying the code (in this case you can use a file name, "stdout" or "stderr"): ```ruby $ RESTCLIENT_LOG=stdout path/to/my/program ``` Either produces logs like this: ```ruby RestClient.get "http://some/resource" # => 200 OK | text/html 250 bytes RestClient.put "http://some/resource", "payload" # => 401 Unauthorized | application/xml 340 bytes ``` Note that these logs are valid Ruby, so you can paste them into the `restclient` shell or a script to replay your sequence of rest calls. ## Proxy All calls to RestClient, including Resources, will use the proxy specified by `RestClient.proxy`: ```ruby RestClient.proxy = "http://proxy.example.com/" RestClient.get "http://some/resource" # => response from some/resource as proxied through proxy.example.com ``` Often the proxy URL is set in an environment variable, so you can do this to use whatever proxy the system is configured to use: ```ruby RestClient.proxy = ENV['http_proxy'] ``` __New in 2.0:__ Specify a per-request proxy by passing the :proxy option to RestClient::Request. This will override any proxies set by environment variable or by the global `RestClient.proxy` value. ```ruby RestClient::Request.execute(method: :get, url: 'http://example.com', proxy: 'http://proxy.example.com') # => single request proxied through the proxy ``` This can be used to disable the use of a proxy for a particular request. ```ruby RestClient.proxy = "http://proxy.example.com/" RestClient::Request.execute(method: :get, url: 'http://example.com', proxy: nil) # => single request sent without a proxy ``` ## Query parameters Rest-client can render a hash as HTTP query parameters for GET/HEAD/DELETE requests or as HTTP post data in `x-www-form-urlencoded` format for POST requests. __New in 2.0:__ Even though there is no standard specifying how this should work, rest-client follows a similar convention to the one used by Rack / Rails servers for handling arrays, nested hashes, and null values. The implementation in [./lib/rest-client/utils.rb](RestClient::Utils.encode_query_string) closely follows [Rack::Utils.build_nested_query](http://www.rubydoc.info/gems/rack/Rack/Utils#build_nested_query-class_method), but treats empty arrays and hashes as `nil`. (Rack drops them entirely, which is confusing behavior.) If you don't like this behavior and want more control, just serialize params yourself (e.g. with `URI.encode_www_form`) and add the query string to the URL directly for GET parameters or pass the payload as a string for POST requests. Basic GET params: ```ruby RestClient.get('https://httpbin.org/get', params: {foo: 'bar', baz: 'qux'}) # GET "https://httpbin.org/get?foo=bar&baz=qux" ``` Basic `x-www-form-urlencoded` POST params: ```ruby >> r = RestClient.post('https://httpbin.org/post', {foo: 'bar', baz: 'qux'}) # POST "https://httpbin.org/post", data: "foo=bar&baz=qux" => >> JSON.parse(r.body) => {"args"=>{}, "data"=>"", "files"=>{}, "form"=>{"baz"=>"qux", "foo"=>"bar"}, "headers"=> {"Accept"=>"*/*", "Accept-Encoding"=>"gzip, deflate", "Content-Length"=>"15", "Content-Type"=>"application/x-www-form-urlencoded", "Host"=>"httpbin.org"}, "json"=>nil, "url"=>"https://httpbin.org/post"} ``` Advanced GET params (arrays): ```ruby >> r = RestClient.get('https://http-params.herokuapp.com/get', params: {foo: [1,2,3]}) # GET "https://http-params.herokuapp.com/get?foo[]=1&foo[]=2&foo[]=3" => >> puts r.body query_string: "foo[]=1&foo[]=2&foo[]=3" decoded: "foo[]=1&foo[]=2&foo[]=3" GET: {"foo"=>["1", "2", "3"]} ``` Advanced GET params (nested hashes): ```ruby >> r = RestClient.get('https://http-params.herokuapp.com/get', params: {outer: {foo: 123, bar: 456}}) # GET "https://http-params.herokuapp.com/get?outer[foo]=123&outer[bar]=456" => >> puts r.body ... query_string: "outer[foo]=123&outer[bar]=456" decoded: "outer[foo]=123&outer[bar]=456" GET: {"outer"=>{"foo"=>"123", "bar"=>"456"}} ``` __New in 2.0:__ The new `RestClient::ParamsArray` class allows callers to provide ordering even to structured parameters. This is useful for unusual cases where the server treats the order of parameters as significant or you want to pass a particular key multiple times. Multiple fields with the same name using ParamsArray: ```ruby >> RestClient.get('https://httpbin.org/get', params: RestClient::ParamsArray.new([[:foo, 1], [:foo, 2]])) # GET "https://httpbin.org/get?foo=1&foo=2" ``` Nested ParamsArray: ```ruby >> RestClient.get('https://httpbin.org/get', params: {foo: RestClient::ParamsArray.new([[:a, 1], [:a, 2]])}) # GET "https://httpbin.org/get?foo[a]=1&foo[a]=2" ``` ## Headers Request headers can be set by passing a ruby hash containing keys and values representing header names and values: ```ruby # GET request with modified headers RestClient.get 'http://example.com/resource', {:Authorization => 'Bearer cT0febFoD5lxAlNAXHo6g'} # POST request with modified headers RestClient.post 'http://example.com/resource', {:foo => 'bar', :baz => 'qux'}, {:Authorization => 'Bearer cT0febFoD5lxAlNAXHo6g'} # DELETE request with modified headers RestClient.delete 'http://example.com/resource', {:Authorization => 'Bearer cT0febFoD5lxAlNAXHo6g'} ``` ## Timeouts By default the timeout for a request is 60 seconds. Timeouts for your request can be adjusted by setting the `timeout:` to the number of seconds that you would like the request to wait. Setting `timeout:` will override both `read_timeout:` and `open_timeout:`. ```ruby RestClient::Request.execute(method: :get, url: 'http://example.com/resource', timeout: 120) ``` Additionally, you can set `read_timeout:` and `open_timeout:` separately. ```ruby RestClient::Request.execute(method: :get, url: 'http://example.com/resource', read_timeout: 120, open_timeout: 240) ``` ## Cookies Request and Response objects know about HTTP cookies, and will automatically extract and set headers for them as needed: ```ruby response = RestClient.get 'http://example.com/action_which_sets_session_id' response.cookies # => {"_applicatioN_session_id" => "1234"} response2 = RestClient.post( 'http://localhost:3000/', {:param1 => "foo"}, {:cookies => {:session_id => "1234"}} ) # ...response body ``` ### Full cookie jar support (new in 1.8) The original cookie implementation was very naive and ignored most of the cookie RFC standards. __New in 1.8__: An HTTP::CookieJar of cookies Response objects now carry a cookie_jar method that exposes an HTTP::CookieJar of cookies, which supports full standards compliant behavior. ## SSL/TLS support Various options are supported for configuring rest-client's TLS settings. By default, rest-client will verify certificates using the system's CA store on all platforms. (This is intended to be similar to how browsers behave.) You can specify an :ssl_ca_file, :ssl_ca_path, or :ssl_cert_store to customize the certificate authorities accepted. ### SSL Client Certificates ```ruby RestClient::Resource.new( 'https://example.com', :ssl_client_cert => OpenSSL::X509::Certificate.new(File.read("cert.pem")), :ssl_client_key => OpenSSL::PKey::RSA.new(File.read("key.pem"), "passphrase, if any"), :ssl_ca_file => "ca_certificate.pem", :verify_ssl => OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_PEER ).get ``` Self-signed certificates can be generated with the openssl command-line tool. ## Hook RestClient.add_before_execution_proc add a Proc to be called before each execution. It's handy if you need direct access to the HTTP request. Example: ```ruby # Add oauth support using the oauth gem require 'oauth' access_token = ... RestClient.add_before_execution_proc do |req, params| access_token.sign! req end RestClient.get 'http://example.com' ``` ## More Need caching, more advanced logging or any ability provided by Rack middleware? Have a look at rest-client-components: http://github.com/crohr/rest-client-components ## Credits ||| |---------------------|---------------------------------------------------------| | REST Client Team | Andy Brody | | Creator | Adam Wiggins | | Maintainers Emeriti | Lawrence Leonard Gilbert, Matthew Manning, Julien Kirch | | Major contributions | Blake Mizerany, Julien Kirch | A great many generous folks have contributed features and patches. See AUTHORS for the full list. ## Legal Released under the MIT License: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php "Master Shake" photo (http://www.flickr.com/photos/solgrundy/924205581/) by "SolGrundy"; used under terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/) Code for reading Windows root certificate store derived from work by Puppet; used under terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0.