How to get JSON responses using HTTP GET and POST request in ruby

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a java script object notation that is used by computer to parse and generate data. It is a format that is quite widely used in some API implementation to exchange data. Last week I had to create an automation test to verify the JSON response result from an API. I eventually use 'net/http' gem to send the json request to the server and use json.parse to parse the JSON response data.

You would need to install "net/http" gem and "json" gem to use it. I created a HTTPResponse class to initialize and send the json request to the server.

class HTTPResponse
  def self.get url
    uri = URI.parse(URI::escape(url))
    http = Net::HTTP.new(uri.host,uri.port)
    headers={'content-type'=>'applications/json'}
    http.get(uri.request_uri, headers)
  end

  def self.post url, payload
    uri = URI.parse(URI::escape(url))
    headers={'content-type'=>'applications/json'}
    request = Net::HTTP::Post.new(uri.request_uri, header)
    request.body = payload
    Net::HTTP.new(uri.host,uri.port).start{|http| http.request(request)}    
  end
end

Then in your step definition you can just call the Get and Post method

GET

  payload = {
        "address" => customer_address,
        "cust_id" => customer_id"
      }.to_json
 
  url = 'http://www.example.com/web/json/newcust=#{payload}'
  @response, @body = HTTPResponse.post(url)

  p @response #will return httpok status
  p JSON.parse(@body) #will return a hash table which you can parse the value easily

POST

  url = 'http://www.example.com/web/json/newcust'


  payload = {
        "address" => customer_address,
        "cust_id" => customer_id"
      }.to_json
 

  @response, @body = HTTPResponse.post(url, payload)

  p @response #will return httpok status
  p JSON.parse(@body) #will return a hash table which you can parse the value easily