Re-using a single file with basic ruby tested code in rails?

Question

I got this code in a single file snippet.rb and it runs as expected. This script if from dzone snippet that fetches the thumbnail of the URL at the current time.

Now I wan to integrate this functionality with Rails and here I'm stuck how to begin. Should I put this in some ruby file inside lib directory or make it modules??? I'm not much fluent in Ruby, so can anyone plz initiate me how and where to start??

 require 'net/http'
 require 'rubygems'
 require 'xmlsimple'

 class Nailer

  @@api_baseurl = 'http://webthumb.bluga.net/api.php'
  @@api_key = 'YOUR-API-KEY'

  attr_accessor :collection_time, :job_id, :ok

  def initialize(url, width = 1024, height = 768)
   url = url.gsub!(/&/, '&')
   api_request = 
 %Q{<webthumb><apikey>#{@@api_key}</apikey><request><url>#{url}</url><width>#{width}</width><height>#{height}</height></request></webthumb>}

   result = do_request(api_request)

   if result.class == Net::HTTPOK
     result_data = XmlSimple.xml_in(result.body)
     @job_id = result_data['jobs'].first['job'].first['content']
     @collection_time = Time.now.to_i + result_data['jobs'].first['job'].first['estimate'].to_i
     @ok = true
   else
     @ok = false
   end
  end

  def retrieve(size = :small)
   api_request = 
 %Q{<webthumb><apikey>#{@@api_key}</apikey><fetch><job>#{@job_id}</job><size>#{size.to_s}</size></fetch></webthumb>}
   result = do_request(api_request)
   result.body
  end

  def retrieve_to_file(filename, size = :small)
   File.new(filename, 'w+').write(retrieve(size.to_s))
  end

  def ready?
   return unless Time.now.to_i >= @collection_time

   api_request = %Q{<webthumb><apikey>#{@@api_key}</apikey><status><job>#{@job_id}</job></status></webthumb>}
   result = do_request(api_request)

   if result.class == Net::HTTPOK
     @ok = true
     result_data = XmlSimple.xml_in(result.body)
     begin
       @result_url = result_data['jobStatus'].first['status'].first['pickup']
       @completion_time = result_data['jobStatus'].first['status'].first['completionTime']
     rescue
       @collection_time += 60 
      return false
     end
   else
     @ok = false
   end

   true
  end

  def ok?
   @ok == true
  end

  def wait_until_ready
   sleep 1 until ready?
  end

  private

  def do_request(body)
   api_url = URI.parse(@@api_baseurl)
   request = Net::HTTP::Post.new(api_url.path)
   request.body = body
   Net::HTTP.new(api_url.host, api_url.port).start {|h| h.request(request) }
  end
 end

 url = 'http://www.rubyinside.com/'
 t = Nailer.new(url)

 if t.ok?
  t.wait_until_ready
  t.retrieve_to_file('out1.jpg', :small)
  t.retrieve_to_file('out2.jpg', :medium)
  t.retrieve_to_file('out3.jpg', :medium2)
  t.retrieve_to_file('out4.jpg', :large)
  puts "Thumbnails saved"
 else
  puts "Error"
 end

Answer 1

The lib directory is a good place for utility code like that.

Answer 2

Looks to me like you can just drop this straight in to your lib/ directory in a file called nailer.rb, and you should be good to go. Since lib/ is in your load path in a Rails app, a simple "require 'nailer'" at the top of any given file should be all you need to pull the class in to your name space.

You could also put it in app/models - it's totally ok to put non-ActiveRecord models in there. Since this isn't exactly a data model in your domain, though, I think lib/ is probably the better place.

Answer 3

Put it in lib/nailer.rb, and you're good to go. Rails' autoloading lets you use Nailer.new(...) and such without any configurations or requires.