I have a device which is connected via ethernet and receives settings via a web browser interface.
When the user clicks "Update Settings" the button calls a URL which has the format
{{IP}}/cgi-bin/webinterfaceSharedMemoryClient.cgi?key=value&key=value&key=value
where the {{IP}} is the set IP of the device.
Does anyone have an idea how I could send this using Ruby, without using a web browser?
Easiest:
require 'open-uri'
url = "IP/cgi-bin/webinterfaceSharedMemoryClient.cgi?key=value&key=value&key=value"
response = open(url) { |io| io.read }
With more control, use Net::HTTP.
There's a library called Net in ruby which should do what you want. The simplest usage would be something like:
require 'net/http'
uri = URI('http://#.#.#.#/cgi-bin/webinterfaceSharedMemoryClient.cgi?key=value&key=value&key=value')
Net::HTTP.get(uri) # => results
this is essentially from the Ruby 2.0 documentation here: http://ruby-doc.org/stdlib-2.0.0/libdoc/net/http/rdoc/Net/HTTP.html
Another option is the mechanize gem. Here's an example:
require 'mechanize'
agent = Mechanize.new
page = agent.get "http://www.example.org/"
page.link_with(:text => 'More information...').click
