Create fake behavior for external call in development environment - ruby-on-rails

I'm doing a code that need to search a external API, but during development I haven't access to this API, so my current solution to run the server and navigate through the system is:
def api_call
return { fake: 'This is a fake return' } if Rails.env.development?
# api interaction code
# ...
end
This let my code dirt, so my question is: There are a pattern (or a better way) to do this?

The pattern I use is to replace api object with one that fakes all methods when in development.
class Api
def query
# perform api query
end
end
class FakeApi
def query
{ fake: 'This is a fake return' }
end
end
# config/environments/production.rb
config.api = Api.new
# config/environments/test.rb
# config/environments/development.rb
config.api = FakeApi.new
# then
def api_call
Rails.configuration.api.query # no branching here! code is clean
end
Basically, you have two classes, Api which does real work and FakeApi that returns pre-baked faked responses. You then use Rails' environment configuration to set different apis in different environments. This way, your client code (that calls #query) doesn't have to care about current environment.

Webmock (https://github.com/bblimke/webmock) is generally accepted as the best gem to stub out external services, and has the added benefit of letting you test how your api_call method parses the API's response.

Related

Rails: Convert REST API to websocket client

I have a typical Rails REST Api written for a http consumers. However, it turns out they need web socket API because of the integration POS Machines.
The typical API looks like this;
class Api::Pos::V1::TransactionsController < ApplicationController
before_action :authenticate
def index
#transactions = #current_business.business_account.business_deposits.last(5)
render json: {
status: 200,
number: #transactions.count,
transactions: #transactions.as_json(only: [:created_at, :amount, :status, :client_card_number, :client_phone_number])
}
end
private
def request_params
params.permit(:account_number, :api_key)
end
def authenticate
render status: 401, json: {
status: 401,
error: "Authentication Failed."
} unless current_business
end
def current_business
account_number = request_params[:account_number].to_s
api_key = request_params[:api_key].to_s
if account_number and api_key
account = BusinessAccount.find_by(account_number: account_number)
if account && Business.find(account.business_id).business_api_key.token =~ /^(#{api_key})/
#current_business = account.business
else
false
end
end
end
end
How can i serve the same responses using web-sockets?
P.S: Never worked with sockets before
Thank you
ActionCable
I would second Dimitris's reference to ActionCable, as it's expected to become part of Rails 5 and should (hopefully) integrate with Rails quite well.
Since Dimitris suggested SSE, I would recommend against doing so.
SSE (Server Sent Events) use long polling and I would avoid this technology for many reasons which include the issue of SSE connection interruptions and extensibility (websockets allow you to add features that SSE won't support).
I am almost tempted to go into a rant about SSE implementation performance issues, but... even though websocket implementations should be more performant, many of them suffer from similar issues and the performance increase is often only in thanks to the websocket connection's longer lifetime...
Plezi
Plezi* is a real-time web application framework for Ruby. You can either use it on it's own (which is not relevant for you) or together with Rails.
With only minimal changes to your code, you should be able to use websockets to return results from your RESTful API. Plezi's Getting Started Guide has a section about unifying the backend's RESTful and Websocket API's. Implementing it in Rails should be similar.
Here's a bit of Demo code. You can put it in a file called plezi.rb and place it in your application's config/initializers folder...
Just make sure you're not using any specific Servers (thin, puma, etc'), allowing Plezi to override the server and use the Iodine server, and remember to add Plezi to your Gemfile.
class WebsocketDemo
# authenticate
def on_open
return close unless current_business
end
def on_message data
data = JSON.parse(data) rescue nil
return close unless data
case data['msg']
when /\Aget_transactions\z/i
# call the RESTful API method here, if it's accessible. OR:
transactions = #current_business.business_account.business_deposits.last(5)
write {
status: 200,
number: transactions.count,
# the next line has what I think is an design flaw, but I left it in
transactions: transactions.as_json(only: [:created_at, :amount, :status, :client_card_number, :client_phone_number])
# # Consider, instead, to avoid nesting JSON streams:
# transactions: transactions.select(:created_at, :amount, :status, :client_card_number, :client_phone_number)
}.to_json
end
end
# don't disclose inner methods to the router
protected
# better make the original method a class method, letting you reuse it.
def current_business
account_number = params[:account_number].to_s
api_key = params[:api_key].to_s
if account_number && api_key
account = BusinessAccount.find_by(account_number: account_number)
if account && Business.find(account.business_id).business_api_key.token =~ /^(#{api_key})/
return (#current_business = account.business)
end
false
end
end
end
Plezi.route '/(:api_key)/(:account_number)', WebsocketDemo
Now we have a route that looks something like: wss://my.server.com/app_key/account_number
This route can be used to send and receive data in JSON format.
To get the transaction list, the client side application can send:
JSON.stringify({msg: "get_transactions"})
This will result in data being send to the client's websocket.onmessage callback with the last five transactions.
Of course, this is just a short demo, but I think it's a reasonable proof of concept.
* I should point out that I'm biased, as I'm Plezi's author.
P.S.
I would consider moving the authentication into a websocket "authenticate" message, allowing the application key to be sent in a less conspicuous manner.
EDIT
These are answers to the questions in the comments.
Capistrano
I don't use Capistrano, so I'm not sure... but, I think it would work if you add the following line to your Capistrano tasks:
Iodine.protocol = false
This will prevent the server from auto-starting, so your Capistrano tasks flow without interruption.
For example, at the beginning of the config/deploy.rb you can add the line:
Iodine.protocol = false
# than the rest of the file, i.e.:
set :deploy_to, '/var/www/my_app_name'
#...
You should also edit your rakefile and add the same line at the beginning of the rakefile, so your rakefile includes the line:
Iodine.protocol = false
Let me know how this works. Like I said, I don't use Capistrano and I haven't tested it out.
Keeping Passenger using a second app
The Plezi documentation states that:
If you really feel attached to your thin, unicorn, puma or passanger server, you can still integrate Plezi with your existing application, but they won't be able to share the same process and you will need to utilize the Placebo API (a guide is coming soon).
But the guide isn't written yet...
There's some information in the GitHub Readme, but it will be removed after the guide is written.
Basically you include the Plezi application with the Redis URL inside your Rails application (remember to make sure to copy all the gems used in the gemfile). than you add this line:
Plezi.start_placebo
That should be it.
Plezi will ignore the Plezi.start_placebo command if there is no other server defined, so you can put the comment in a file shared with the Rails application as long as Plezi's gem file doesn't have a different server.
You can include some or all of the Rails application code inside the Plezi application. As long as Plezi (Iodine, actually) is the only server in the Plezi GEMFILE, it should work.
The applications will synchronize using Redis and you can use your Plezi code to broadcast websocket events inside your Rails application.
You may want to have a look at https://github.com/rails/actioncable which is the Rails way to deal with WebSockets, but currently in Alpha.
Judging from your code snippet, the client seems to only consume data from your backend. I'm skeptical whether you really need WebSockets. Ιf the client won't push data back to the server, Server Sent Events seem more appropriate.
See relevant walk-through and documentation.

Where is a good place to initialize an API?

I wanted to use this api: https://github.com/coinbase/coinbase-ruby and the first step is to initialize the API, like this:
coinbase = Coinbase::Client.new(ENV['COINBASE_API_KEY'], ENV['COINBASE_API_SECRET'])
I was wondering what the best place to put this code is, and how would I access it if I put it "there"? I want this variable (coinbase) to be accessible ANYWHERE in the application.
Thanks!
The answer to this question really depends on your use case and your approach. My geral recommendation, however, is to create a Service Object (in the DDD sense) (see the section named "Domain Objects Should Not Know Anything About Infrastructure Underneath" in that link), that handles all communication with the Coinbase API. And then, within this service object, you can simply initialize the Coinbase::Client object once for however many times you call into it. Here's an example:
# app/services/coinbase_service.rb
class CoinbaseService
cattr_reader :coinbase_client, instance_accessor: false do
Coinbase::Client.new(ENV['COINBASE_API_KEY'], ENV['COINBASE_API_SECRET'])
end
def self.do_something
coinbase_client.do_something_in_their_api
end
def self.do_something_else
coinbase_client.do_something_else_in_their_api
end
end
So then you might do, e.g.:
# From MyController#action_1
if CoinbaseService.do_something
# ...
else
# ...
end
Or:
# From MyModel
def do_something
CoinbaseService.do_something_else
end
To get the service object working, you may need to add app/services to your autoload paths in application.rb file. I normally just add this:
# config/application.rb
config.autoload_paths += %W(#{config.root}/app)
I find this Service Object approach to be very beneficial organizationally, more efficient (only 1 invocation of the new Coinbase client needed), easier to test (easy to mock-out calls to Coinbase::Client), and simply joyful :).
One way to go about having a global variable can be done as similar as initializing redis in a Rails application by creating an initializer in config/initializers/coinbase.rb with:
$coinbase = Coinbase::Client.new(ENV['COINBASE_API_KEY'], ENV['COINBASE_API_SECRET'])
Now, you can access $coinbase anywhere in the application!
In the file config/initializers/coinbase.rb
Rails.application.config.after_initialize do
CoinbaseClient = Coinbase::Client.new(
Rails.application.credentials.coinbase[:api_key],
Rails.application.credentials.coinbase[:api_secret])
end
In place of the encrypted credentials, you could also use environment variables: ENV['COINBASE_API_KEY'], ENV['COINBASE_API_SECRET']
The above will make the constant CoinbaseClient available everywhere in your app. It will also ensure all your gems are loaded before the client is initialized.
Note: I am using Rails 6.1.4.4, and Ruby 2.7.5

How to stub in Rails development environment?

I'm looking for a reliable way to dynamically stub certain methods in my development environment. One example use case is when I need to do development that normally requires access to the Facebook Graph APIs but I don't have Internet access. I'd like to be able to stub the calls to fb_graph methods so it looks as if I'm authenticated and have profile data. Ideally I could turn the stubs on or off with a minor config change.
Any ideas? I'm assuming something like mocha can handle this?
You can use the VCR gem which will record the results of an initial HTTP request into a yml file and then use the contents of that yml file on subsequent http requests. It can then be configured to ignore the VCR logic and always make HTTP requests, if so desired:
https://www.relishapp.com/myronmarston/vcr
Mocha can certainly do it. But it feels a bit strange.
You could also do something like dependency injection.
For instance:
class User < AR::Base
def find_friends
Facebook.find_friends(facebook_id)
end
end
class Facebook
def self.find_friends(id)
# connect to Facebook here
end
end
class FakeFacebook
def self.find_friends(id)
# a fake implementation here
end
end
And inside an initializer:
if Rails.env.development?
User::Facebook = FakeFacebook
end

Passing variables to config/environments/demo.rb from the Rails app

I have been struggling with a problem for the past days in a Ruby on Rails App I'm currently working on. I have different countries and for each country we use different Amazon S3 buckets. Amazon S3 key credentials are stored as constants in config/environments/environment_name.rb(ex:demo.rb) There is no way for me to determine which country we are operating from the config file. I can determine which country we are operating from the controllers,models,views,etc but not from the config file. Is there a Ruby meta programming or some other kind of magic that I'm not aware of so that I want to say if we are working on UK as a country in the app, use UK's bucket credentials or Germany as a country, use Germany's bucket credentials? I can't think of a way to pass parameters to environment files from the app itself. Thank you very much in advance for all your helps.
Rather than actually pass the configuration details to whichever S3 client you're using at launch, you should probably select the relevant credentials for each request. Your config file can define them all in a hash like so:
# config/s3.rb
S3_BUCKETS => {
:us => 'our-files-us',
:gb => 'our-files-gb',
:tz => 'special-case'
}
Then you can select the credentials on request like so (in maybe your AppController):
bucket_name = S3_BUCKETS[I18n.locale]
# pass this info to your S3 client
Make sense?
Write a little middleware if you want to keep the knowledge of the per-country configuration out of the main application.
A middleware is extremely simple. A do-nothing middleware looks like this:
class DoesNothing
def initialize(app, *args)
#app = app
end
def call(env)
#app.call(env)
end
end
Rack powers applications through chaining a series of middlewares together... each one is given a reference to #app, which is the next link in the chain, and it must invoke #call on that application. The one at the end of the chain runs the app.
So in your case, you can do some additional configuration in here.
class PerCountryConfiguration
def initialize(app)
#app = app
end
def call(env)
case env["COUNTRY"]
when "AU"
Rails.application.config.s3_buckets = { ... }
when "US"
Rails.application.config.s3_buckets = { ... }
... etc
end
#app.call(env)
end
end
There are several ways to use the middleware, but since it depends on access to the Rails environment, you'll want to do it from inside Rails. Put it in your application.rb:
config.middleware.use PerCountryConfiguration
If you want to pass additional arguments to the constructor of your middleware, just list them after the class name:
config.middleware.use PerCountryConfiguration, :some_argument
You can also mount the middleware from inside of ApplicationController, which means all of the initializers and everything will have already been executed, so it may be too far along the chain.

Separating rails logs per action

I have rails 3 app that generates a lot of requests for analytics. Unfortunately this drowns the logs and I lose the main page requests that I actually care about. I want to separate these requests in to a separate log file. Is there a way to specify certain actions to go to a certain log file? Or possibly a way to reduce the logging level of these actions, and then only show certain level logs when reading back the log file?
I found this site, which talked about using a middleware for silencing log actions. I used the same sort of idea and ended up writing a middleware that would swap the logger depending on which action was being called. Here is the middleware, which i put in lib/noisy_logger.rb
class NoisyLogger < Rails::Rack::Logger
def initialize app, opts = {}
#default_log = Rails.logger
# Put the noisy log in the same directory as the default log.
#noisy_log = Logger.new Rails.root.join('log', 'noisy.log')
#app = app
#opts = opts
#opts[:noisy] = Array #opts[:noisy]
super app
end
def call env
if #opts[:noisy].include? env['PATH_INFO']
logfile = #noisy_log
else
logfile = #default_log
end
# What?! Why are these all separate?
ActiveRecord::Base.logger = logfile
ActionController::Base.logger = logfile
Rails.logger = logfile
# The Rails::Rack::Logger class is responsible for logging the
# 'starting GET blah blah' log line. We need to call super here (as opposed
# to #app.call) to make sure that line gets output. However, the
# ActiveSupport::LogSubscriber class (which Rails::Rack::Logger inherits
# from) caches the logger, so we have to override that too
#logger = logfile
super
end
end
And then this goes in config/initializers/noisy_log.rb
MyApp::Application.config.middleware.swap(
Rails::Rack::Logger, NoisyLogger, :noisy => "/analytics/track"
)
Hope that helps someone!
One option could be using a service like New Relic which would give you the required scoping (per action).

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