Using ActiveRecord interface for Models backed by external API in Ruby on Rails

Question

I\'m trying to use Models in my Rails application that retrieve information from an external API. What I would like to do is access my data models (which may consist of informat

Answer 1

Remember that Rails is still just Ruby underneath.

You could represent the external API as instantiated classes within your application.

class Event
  def self.find(id)
    #...External http call to get some JSON...#
    new(json_from_api)
  end

  def initialize(json)
    #...set up your object here...#
  end


  def attendees
    #...external http call to get some JSON and then assemble it 
    #...into an array of other objects
  end
end

So you end up writing local abstractions to create ruby objects from api calls, you can probably also mix in ActiveModel, or Virtus into it, so you can use hash assignment of attributes, and validations for forms etc.

Take a look at an API abstraction I did for the TfL feed for the tube. service_disruption