IURI

Build complex URIs with chainability and immutability. No string concatenation required. If you're familiar with URI then you already know how to use it.

Why?

First it starts like this.

"https://lifx.co/api/v1/devices".

Then you need to target different hosts in development, staging and production.

"#{ENV['API_SCHEME']}://#{ENV['API_HOST']}/api/v1/devices"

Then staging becomes protected by basic authentication.

if ENV['API_CREDENTIALS']
  "#{ENV['API_SCHEME']}://#{ENV['API_CREDENTIALS']}@#{ENV['API_HOST']}/api/v1/devices"
else
  "#{ENV['API_SCHEME']}://#{ENV['API_HOST']}/api/v1/devices"
end

Then you need to target different paths.

def devices_url
  base_url + '/api/v1/devices'
end

def accounts_url
  base_url + '/api/v1/accounts'
end

def base_url
  if ENV['API_CREDENTIALS']
    "#{ENV['API_SCHEME']}://#{ENV['API_CREDENTIALS']}@#{ENV['API_HOST']}"
  else
    "#{ENV['API_SCHEME']}://#{ENV['API_HOST']}"
  end
end

Now you've added three environment variables and you're vulnerable to developers mistyping URLs. With IURI there's a better way.

# Development
# ENV['API_BASE_URL'] = 'http://lifx.dev'
#
# Staging
# ENV['API_BASE_URL'] = 'https://user:pass@staging.lifx.co'
#
# Production
# ENV['API_BASE_URL'] = 'https://lifx.co'

def devices_url
  API_BASE_URL.merge(path: "/api/v1/devices")
end

def accounts_url
  API_BASE_URL.merge(path: "/api/v1/accounts")
end

def API_BASE_URL
  IURI.parse(ENV['API_BASE_URL'])
end

Usage

Parse URL and append a path.

uri = IURI.parse("https://user:secret@lifx.co").merge(path: "/api/v1/devices")
uri.to_s # => "https://user:secret@lifx.co/api/v1/devices"

Preferring components to strings gives you greater flexibility over the base URL. Here we include a query string at the end of the URL and change the path as required.

uri = IURI.parse("https://lifx.co?api_key=secret").merge(path: "/api/v1/devices")
uri.to_s # => "https://lifx.co/api/v1/devices?api_key=secret"

Queries can also be built with a hash avoiding worrying about formatting and escaping. Deep hashes are OK.

uri = IURI.parse("https://lifx.co").merge(params: {api_key: 'secret'})
uri.to_s # => "https://lifx.co/?api_key=secret"

Supports the same components as URI. Here's a sample of commonly used components.

iuri = IURI.parse("https://lifx.co").merge({
  path: "/api/v1/devices"
  query: "api_key=secret"
  user: "user"
  password: "secret"
})

iuri.path     # => "/api/v1/devices"
iuri.query    # => "api_key=secret"
iuri.user     # => "user"
iuri.password # => "secret"

Each merge returns a copy guaranteeing that constants and variables remain unchanged.

uri1 = IURI.parse("https://lifx.co")
uri2 = uri1.merge(path: "/api/v1/devices")
uri1.to_s # => "https://lifx.co"
uri2.to_s # => "https://lifx.co/api/v1/devices"

Installation

First, add this line to your application's Gemfile.

gem 'iuri'

Then, then execute.

$ bundle

Tests

Run the entire test suite.

$ rake

Contributing

Fork it (https://github.com/tatey/iuri/fork)
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
Create a new Pull Request

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