Rails - save to database from external JSON on create - ruby-on-rails

Question

I am attempting to update database fields from an external JSON response using Ruby on Rails. I would like this action to take place upon creation of a new record, as the data is relatively static. In the future I'll need to tackle the ability to refresh the data, but that is for another day.
I have created the rails scaffolding using:
rails generate scaffolding hotel hotelId:integer hotelName:string hotelCity:string
I would like to create a new record using only the hotelId, send the hotelId in my URI request, and then update the hotelName and hotelCity field.
I'm stuck on both sending the request using the hotelId field, and saving the results.
hotel.rb Model:
class Hotel < ActiveRecord::Base
def self.save_data_from_api
api = Expedia::Api.new
response = api.get_information({:hotelId => '#hotelID'})
hotel_data = response.body
hotel_parsed = JSON.parse(hotel_data.to_json)
h = Hotel.new
h.hotelName = hotel_parsed['HotelInformationResponse']['HotelSummary']['name']
h.hotelCity = hotel_parsed['HotelInformationResponse']['HotelSummary']['city']
h.save!
h
end
end
Included in my hotels_controller.rb
def new
#hotel = Hotel.new
#hotelID = Hotel.hotelID
end
I have not updated the new.html.erb View because I did not know how or where to call the save_data_from_api method.
Incidentally, the Expedia API gem I'm using is located here: https://github.com/zaidakram/expedia

Answer 1

Like:
class Hotel < ActiveRecord::Base
before_save :save_data_from_api
def save_data_from_api
return if hotel_id.blank?
api = Expedia::Api.new
response = api.get_information({:hotelId => hotel_id})
hotel_data = response.body
hotel_parsed = JSON.parse(hotel_data.to_json)
self.hotel_name = hotel_parsed['HotelInformationResponse']['HotelSummary']['name']
self.hotel_city = hotel_parsed['HotelInformationResponse']['HotelSummary']['city']
end
end
and then use like Hotel.create(hotel_id: '33').
Note that I've changed your AR attribute names to be more Ruby-ish.
EDIT
Depending on what you're doing with your application, it may not be necessary or the best idea to add hotels from a controller. You might want to just load them from rails console, or, if you have a list of hotel IDs, using a Rake task.
However, if you want to load them from a controller, you can have:
# in controller:
def new; #hotel = Hotel.new; end
def create
# note: if you're using Rails 4, use strong params here
#hotel = Hotel.new(params[:hotel])
respond_to do |format|
if #hotel.save
format.html { redirect_to #hotel, notice: 'Hotel was successfully created.' }
else
format.html { render action: "new" }
end
end
end
And in your new.html.erb, something like:
<%= form_for #hotel do |f| %>
<%= f.text_field :hotel_id %>
<%= f.submit 'Submit' %>
<% end %>