How can I parse subpages of another website in Rails? - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm creating a third-party web application of Last.fm and I'm having an issue with getting info about certain artist from them.
I have a method that parses data about some #{artist} from JSON:
artists_helper.rb
require 'net/http'
require 'json'
module ArtistsHelper
def about(artist)
artist = "?"
url = "http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/?method=artist.getinfo&artist=#{artist}&api_key=f5cb791cfb2ade77749afcc97b5590c8&format=json"
uri = URI(url)
response = Net::HTTP.get(uri)
JSON.parse(response)
end
end
If I change '?' to the artist name in that method I can successfully parse info about artist from JSON file of that artist. But for when I go the page e.g. http://localhost:3000/artists/Wild+Nothing I need the method 'about(artist)' to get the value 'Wild+Nothing' and parse the data for Wild Nothing from Last.fm's JSON file.
How can I tell the method 'about' that what stands after http://localhost:3000/artists/ is the required value?

Answer 1

In the routes, have a get route name that accepts a variable
get 'artists/:name', to: 'artists#about'
In the artists controller, have an about function:
def about
artist = params[:name]
url = "http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/?method=artist.getinfo&artist=#{artist}&api_key=f5cb791cfb2ade77749afcc97b5590c8&format=json"
uri = URI(url)
response = Net::HTTP.get(uri)
response = JSON.parse(response)
render json: response
end
and we are good to go to display the json on the view.
If you need the param in the helper, just pass params[:name] to the helper as a parameter.
about(param[:name]) #wherever you are calling this method in the controller or view
def about(artist)
url = "http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/?method=artist.getinfo&artist=#{artist}&api_key=f5cb791cfb2ade77749afcc97b5590c8&format=json"
uri = URI(url)
response = Net::HTTP.get(uri)
JSON.parse(response)
end