Ruby Equivalent of Python Requests Library (HTTP Client)

Question

There is a library in Python that I love called "Requests". Requests is a HTTP client build on urllib3. "requests doc".

I am looking for something similar in Ruby. Basically what I need is:

Upload files support (multipart/form-data).
Easy get/post.
Cookies can be passed from a response object to a request object (build manually login script).
Stable and Flexible.
Sessions support (to not have to handle cookies manually if we don't have too).

I've looked at Typhoeus, but the code example in the home page doesn't work; they have moved code along and the get method is not longer directly accessible like that, so it's not starting well. Curb seems nice and I like cURL, there is also rest-client, which seems popular, and em-http seems pretty fast according to benchmark. There is a also Patron and curb-fu, which I haven't have the time to try. And, of course, Net:HTTP. But, it doesn't seem to have a mainstream solution that everyone points to.

I think a lot of people have been in my situation and I wonder what they have choosen and why?

General Grievance · Accepted Answer · 2022-10-28 17:39:17Z

11

The author of the comparison is the author of httpclient, but from the looks of it the comparison is fair.

For a more narrative style with some explanation of the matrix, see http://www.slideshare.net/HiroshiNakamura/rubyhttp-clients-comparison from the same author.

The comparison comes out partly in favor of httpclient, which I can also recommend. Simple, featureful, compatible with all Ruby platforms and performant. Better cookie support than anything else out there, but the presentation mentions that cookies may leak from one (malevolent) site to another if you use the same client object. Don't know if this is still true.

edited Oct 28, 2022 at 17:39

General Grievance

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answered Apr 2, 2013 at 9:36

clacke

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4 Comments

Hartator Over a year ago

Yeah, it's still the case for the cookie stuff. Fortunately, it's a big security hole, it's just that you can setup cookies for .com. domain name.

clacke Over a year ago

As long as you are aware of it, it probably is not a big problem. I think (don't trust me! verify!) that as long as you instantiate two different objects for two sites, you should be fine.

w00d Over a year ago

unfortunately httpclient is not actively maintained. I found Excon is good

clacke Over a year ago

Latest release of github.com/nahi/httpclient was "Jun 8, 2014 - version 2.4.0". httpclient is actively maintained. It's just so close to perfection it doesn't need many updates. ;-)

f-3r · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-10 17:10:26Z

7

There is https://github.com/cyx/requests, which is exactly what the question is asking for, a port of the requests lib from python.

answered Feb 10, 2015 at 17:10

f-3r

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the Tin Man · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-30 05:51:02Z

The built-in OpenURI is the first place to look. It's simple and handles the basics nicely.

Typhoeus, which I've used several times for parallel processes, works nicely. Documentation and the codebase are available at Github.

irb(main):009:0> response = Typhoeus::Request.get("www.example.com")
=> #<Typhoeus::Response:0x007ffbcc067cf8 @code=302, @curl_return_code=0, @curl_error_message="No error", @status_message=nil, @http_version=nil, @headers="HTTP/1.0 302 Found\r\nLocation: http://www.iana.org/domains/example/\r\nServer: BigIP\r\nConnection: close\r\nContent-Length: 0\r\n\r\n", @body="", @time=0.035584, @requested_url=nil, @requested_http_method=nil, @start_time=nil, @start_transfer_time=0.035529, @app_connect_time=2.8e-05, @pretransfer_time=0.000429, @connect_time=2.8e-05, @name_lookup_time=2.8e-05, @request=:method => :get,
    :url => www.example.com, @effective_url="HTTP://www.example.com", @primary_ip="192.0.43.10", @redirect_count=0, @mock=false>
irb(main):010:0> puts response.headers
HTTP/1.0 302 Found
Location: http://www.iana.org/domains/example/
Server: BigIP
Connection: close
Content-Length: 0

I use Net::HTTP occasionally too, but OpenURI and Typhoeus, with Hydra, have proven to be easy to use and integrate with my code.

Hartator · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-01 17:40:21Z

4

I've eventually found this HTTPClient : https://github.com/nahi/httpclient

I've started using it, it matches the features I wanted, and more over it's pretty fast according to some benchmark. It also support some advanced things like streaming or chunked response. It's shame though it's not famous in the ruby community. :)

answered Nov 1, 2012 at 17:40

Hartator

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Alison R. · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-02 17:43:17Z

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Have you looked at the HTTParty gem?

edited Sep 2, 2016 at 17:43

Alison R.

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answered Oct 30, 2012 at 4:54

Dan Draper

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pguardiario · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-30 04:57:44Z

2

If you need cookies and form handling, mechanize is the only way to go.

answered Oct 30, 2012 at 4:57

pguardiario

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4 Comments

Hartator Over a year ago

I think mechanize simulate a whole browser, nope?

pguardiario Over a year ago

I use httpclient a lot. It's a great library for when you want something lightweight. But it doesn't do everything on your list and mechanize does.

pguardiario Over a year ago

If you hadn't down-voted my answer I might be inclined to tell you.

Hartator Over a year ago

I can't change my vote unless u make am edit. (Make a tiny one like a smiley, that's enough). I am curious. :)

i0rek · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-31 21:42:05Z

I'm sorry to hear, that Typhoeus didn't work out for you. The reason is, that the README shows howto work with Typhoeus v0.5.0.rc which can be installed with

gem install typhoeus --pre

or

gem "typhoeus", git: "git://github.com/typhoeus/typhoeus.git"

. There is no session support for Typhoeus but other than that it could be a good fit. At least its stable as hell since it is build on top of libcurl.

File sending example:

Typhoeus.post("www.example.com/file", body: { file: File.open("testfile.txt","r") })

There is unfortunately no shortcut to deal with cookies, you have to set them manually:

Typhoeus.get("www.example.com/needs_cookie", headers: { Cookie: "PRIVATE" })

TLDR: I would choose Typhoeus for its speed and libcurl if you're willing to set things up yourself. Otherwise I would look into Faraday and use it with the Typhoeus adapter.

Edit: I've added installation instructions to the README.

Edit: 0.5 is released.

Shreyas · Accepted Answer · 2018-12-04 06:06:36Z

1

This question seems to be lacking recent answers. So am filling in the void.

Coming from python myself, and having loved requests library for what it does easily, I recently discovered a very nice Ruby equivalent in rest_client

It supports all the features mentioned in the question, and seems to be very nice from usability perspective - what requests library aimed to achieve.

answered Dec 4, 2018 at 6:06

Shreyas

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1 Comment

Hartator Over a year ago

Ended up using http.rb. It's okay.

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