A simple way to access the Webhose.io API from your Ruby code

    require 'webhoseio'

    client = Webhoseio.new(YOUR_API_KEY)
    output = client.query("filterWebData", {"q":"github"})
    puts output['posts'][0]['text'] # Print the text of the first post
    puts output['posts'][0]['published'] # Print the text of the first post publication date

    # Get the next batch of posts
    output = client.get_next()
    puts output['posts'][0]['thread']['site'] # Print the site of the first post

To make use of the webhose.io API, you need to obtain a token that would be used on every request. To obtain an API key, create an account at https://webhose.io/auth/signup, and then go into https://webhose.io/dashboard to see your token.

You can install from source:

    $ git clone https://github.com/seenkoo/webhoseio-ruby
    $ cd webhoseio-ruby
    $ gem build webhoseio.gemspec
    $ gem install ./webhoseio-*.gem

Or use gem install:

   $ gem install webhoseio

To get started, you need to require the library, and instantiate an API-client with your access token. (Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your actual API key).

    >>> require 'webhoseio'
    >>> client = Webhoseio.new(YOUR_API_KEY)

API Endpoints

The first parameter the query() function accepts is the API endpoint string. Available endpoints:

• filterWebData - access to the news/blogs/forums/reviews API
• productSearch - access to data about eCommerce products/services
• darkWebAPI - access to the dark web (coming soon)

Now you can make a request and inspect the results:

    >>> output = client.query("filterWebData", {"q":"github"})
    >>> output['totalResults']
    15565094
    output['posts'].size
    100
    >>> output['posts'][0]['language']
    'english'
    >>> output['posts'][0]['title']
    'Putting quotes around dictionary keys in JS'

For your convenience, the ouput object is iterable, so you can loop over it and get all the results of this batch (up to 100).

    >>> output['posts'].inject(0) do |total_words, post|
    ...   total_words + post['text'].split.size
    ... end
    8822

• initialize(token)

  • token - your API key

• query(end_point, params)

  • end_point:
    • filterWebData - access to the news/blogs/forums/reviews API
    • productSearch - access to data about eCommerce products/services
    • darkWebAPI - access to the dark web (coming soon)
  • params: A key value dictionary. The most common key is the "q" parameter that hold the filters Boolean query. Read about the available filters.

• get_next() - a method to fetch the next page of results.

If you want to make repeated searches, performing an action whenever there are new results, use code like this:

    res = client.query("filterWebData", {"q":"skyrim"})
    loop do
      res['posts'].each do |post|
        perform_action(post)
      end
      sleep(0.3)
      res = client.get_next
    end