Stub api response

[hpjaj]

Description of changes

Example of setting up testing for a third party API, mocking the API's response.

[hpjaj]

@leenyburger - Let me know if this makes sense, and what questions you have

[hpjaj]

This gem does a lot of cool stuff. The reason I am adding it here is because, by default, it pretty prints things in the rails console. So for example, when you are viewing a deeply nested array of hashes, instead of printing it out all in one line, it will add in the proper indenting and line returns.

I used it to get the shape of the array in the new group_endpoint_parsed_response method.

[hpjaj]

You'll note that HTTParty's get method is in fact a class method on Meetup.

This line says:

In the tests,
whenever you are going to call that self.class.get method,
with these exact parameters: "/pro/operationcode/groups", options,
instead of using HTTParty,
just return whatever group_endpoint_response returns.

Also note the order of things here, with regards to the stub. Meaning you have to create the stub before you call the method it is stubbing out. i.e. line 6 has to precede line 8.

[hpjaj]

So since Meetup.new.operationcode_data calls self.class.get inside of it, it respects that stub you set up.

[hpjaj]

These are not the actual assertions you would make.

They are just here to illustrate that the stubbed data is in fact being returned, and that you can work with it.

[hpjaj]

Ruby's OpenStruct is a cool tool to have in your toolbox.

Reason we need this here is because it allows us to create an object, and then add methods to it that we can call using . notation.

So for example:

• we create an (OpenStruct) object called response_struct
• we then add a method/attribute to it called code
• we set this code attribute equal to 200 (by default)

This allows us to call what is in the code attribute using . notation:

[2] pry(main)> response_struct = OpenStruct.new
=> #<OpenStruct>
[3] pry(main)> response_struct.code = 200
=> 200
[4] pry(main)> response_struct.code
=> 200

And this is exactly how the response returned from the Meetup API is structured. You are checking that it's code is 200 by calling response.code. OpenStruc allows for this.

[hpjaj]

To get this data, I:

• hard coded the Meetup API key in the api_key value (do not commit this API key)
• commented out the return_value_for response in you operationcode_data method (so that the whole response is returned)
• called your operationcode_data in the rails console
• since the response.parsed_response returns an array of like 20+ items, and we only need a couple for testing, I then called response.parsed_responsed.take(2)
• this returns an array of two hashes, of the real data from the API