Rails - Jul 2006 - What''s wrong with this code?

I''m trying to interface with the flickr API to pull my photos into my 
site.  I don''t want to use the "flickr.rb" gem, I''d
like to do it the
other way so I can learn (plus I had trouble loading the gem on my 
server).  Anyway, here''s what I have:

#Application.rb controller

    def get_response(path, http)
      request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(path)
      response = http.request(request)
      response.value
      response.body
    end

    path = 
"/services/rest/?api_key=API_KEY&method=flickr.photos.search&user_id=USER_ID&tags=TAG"
    http = Net::HTTP.new(''flickr.com'')

    @photo_ids = Array.new
    http.start do |http|
      xml = get_response(path, http)
      REXML::Document.new(xml).root.get_elements(''photo'').each
do
|photo|
        id = photo.attributes[''id'']
        @photo_ids << id
      end
    end

#Application.rhtml layout

<% for p in @photo_ids %>
  <%= p %>
<% end %>

This just doesn''t do anything.  It doesn''t give me errors, but
it the
@photo_ids variable is empty.  I''ve also tried <%= p.id %> and so
on.

Can someone see something wrong with this code?  Thanks!

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

ry an wrote:
> I''m trying to interface with the flickr API to pull my photos into
my
> site.  I don''t want to use the "flickr.rb" gem,
I''d like to do it the
> other way so I can learn (plus I had trouble loading the gem on my 
> server).
Your better off putting this as it''s own file in the lib directory. 
Make it a module called FlickerAPI and stick it in lib/flickr_api.rb

Now take that above code and stick it in a class method of that module

  #lib/flickr_api.rb
  module FlickerAPI
    def self.get_photos
      ...
    end
  end

Now you can access it easily from "script/console", with the code 
"FlickerAPI.get_photos"

Now, right after you get the get_result call, stick a "puts xml" just
to
be sure the API is returning to you the expected result xml.  Remove the 
line when you are sure the data is being properly retrieved.

Lastly, I think your XML parsing loop is not quite right.  Not knowing 
the structure of the expected xml, my guess would be that you want 
something more like:

  REXML::Document.new(xml).root.elements.each(''//photo'') do
|photo|
    ...
  end

And I just realized, is this just in the class itself? or is all this 
code in a method called with before_filter?  If it''s not in a method 
with a before_filter specified for it, then it will only be run once, 
and the instance variable will belong to the class, not the instance of 
the controller which means it will not get sent to the controller 
actions or views at all.

Your aplication.rb should look like this:

  class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
    before_filter :get_photos
    def get_photos
      @photo_ids = FlickrAPI.get_photos
    end
  end

A long answer for a simple question, but there you go :)

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