About
HTTP (The Gem! a.k.a. http.rb) is an easy-to-use client library for making requests
from Ruby. It uses a simple method chaining system for building requests, similar to
Python’s Requests.
Under the hood, http.rb uses http_parser.rb, a fast HTTP parsing native
extension based on the Node.js parser and a Java port thereof. This library
isn’t just yet another wrapper around Net::HTTP. It implements the HTTP protocol
natively and outsources the parsing to native extensions.
Another Ruby HTTP library? Why should I care?
There are a lot of HTTP libraries to choose from in the Ruby ecosystem.
So why would you choose this one?
Top three reasons:
Clean API: http.rb offers an easy-to-use API that should be a
breath of fresh air after using something like Net::HTTP.Maturity: http.rb is one of the most mature Ruby HTTP clients, supporting
features like persistent connections and fine-grained timeouts.Performance: using native parsers and a clean, lightweight implementation,
http.rb achieves the best performance of any Ruby HTTP library which
implements the HTTP protocol in Ruby instead of C:
| HTTP client | Time | Implementation |
|————————–|——–|———————–|
| curb (persistent) | 2.519 | libcurl wrapper |
| em-http-request | 2.731 | EM + http_parser.rb |
| Typhoeus | 2.851 | libcurl wrapper |
| StreamlyFFI (persistent) | 2.853 | libcurl wrapper |
| http.rb (persistent) | 2.970 | Ruby + http_parser.rb |
| http.rb | 3.588 | Ruby + http_parser.rb |
| HTTParty | 3.931 | Net::HTTP wrapper |
| Net::HTTP | 3.959 | Pure Ruby |
| Net::HTTP (persistent) | 4.043 | Pure Ruby |
| open-uri | 4.479 | Net::HTTP wrapper |
| Excon (persistent) | 4.618 | Pure Ruby |
| Excon | 4.701 | Pure Ruby |
| RestClient | 26.838 | Net::HTTP wrapper |
Benchmarks performed using excon’s benchmarking tool
DISCLAIMER: Most benchmarks you find in READMEs are crap,
including this one. These are out-of-date. If you care about
performance, benchmark for yourself for your own use cases!
Help and Discussion
If you need help or just want to talk about the http.rb,
visit the http.rb Google Group:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/httprb
You can join by email by sending a message to:
httprb+subscribe@googlegroups.com
If you believe you’ve found a bug, please report it at:
https://github.com/httprb/http/issues
Installation
Add this line to your application’s Gemfile:
gem "http"
And then execute:
$ bundle
Or install it yourself as:
$ gem install http
Inside of your Ruby program do:
require "http"
…to pull it in as a dependency.
Documentation
Please see the http.rb wiki
for more detailed documentation and usage notes.
The following API documentation is also available:
Basic Usage
Here’s some simple examples to get you started:
>> HTTP.get("https://github.com").to_s => "> HTTP.get("https://github.com") => #"text/html; charset=UTF-8", "Date"=>"Fri, ...> => #"text/html; ...>
We can also obtain an HTTP::Response::Body object for this response:
>> HTTP.get("https://github.com").body => #
The response body can be streamed with HTTP::Response::Body#readpartial:
>> HTTP.get("https://github.com").body.readpartial => "