NiceHttp

NiceHttp the simplest library for accessing and testing HTTP and REST resources.

Manage different hosts on the fly. Easily get the value you want from the JSON strings. Use hashes on your requests. Get automatically statistics of your http communication and all the logs with the requests and responses.

Also you can use mock responses by using :mock_response key on the request hash and enable the use_mocks option on NiceHttp.

NiceHttp will take care of the redirections and the cookies, and for security tests you will be able to modify the cookies or disable and control the redirections by yourself.

NiceHttp is able to use hashes as requests data and uses the Request Hash structure: https://github.com/MarioRuiz/Request-Hash

On the next link you have a full example using nice_http and RSpec to test REST APIs, Uber API and Reqres API: https://github.com/MarioRuiz/api-testing-example

To be able to generate random requests take a look at the documentation for nice_hash gem: https://github.com/MarioRuiz/nice_hash

Example that creates 1000 good random and unique requests to register an user and test that the validation of the fields are correct by the user was able to be registered. Send 800 requests where just one field is wrong and verify the user was not able to be created: https://gist.github.com/MarioRuiz/824d7a462b62fd85f02c1a09455deefb

Table of Contents

• Installation
• A very simple first example
• Create a connection
• Creating requests
• Responses
  • Async Responses
• Special settings
• Authentication requests
  • Basic Authentication
  • OpenID
  • OAuth2
  • JWT Token
  • lambda on headers
• Http logs
  • Multithreading
• Http stats
• Tips
  • Download a file
  • Send multipart content
  • Send x-www-form-urlencoded
• Contributing
• License

Installation

Install it yourself as:

$ gem install nice_http

A very simple first example

require 'nice_http'

http = NiceHttp.new('https://reqres.in')

resp = http.get("/api/users?page=2")

pp resp.code
pp resp.data.json

resp = http.get("/api/users/2")

pp resp.data.json(:first_name, :last_name)

resp = http.post( {
    path: "/api/users",
    data: { name: "morpheus", job: "leader" } 
} )

pp resp.data.json

Create a connection

The simplest way is just by supplying the value as an argument:

# as an url
http1 = NiceHttp.new("https://example.com")

# as parameters
http2 = NiceHttp.new( host: "reqres.in", port: 443, ssl: true )

# as a hash
http3 = NiceHttp.new my_reqres_server

You can specify all the defaults you will be using when creating connections by using the NiceHttp methods, in this example, http1 and http2 will be connecting to reqres.in with the default parameters and http3 to example.com:

# default parameters
NiceHttp.host = 'reqres.in'
NiceHttp.ssl = true
NiceHttp.port = 443
NiceHttp.debug = false
NiceHttp.log = "./my_logs.log"
NiceHttp.headers = {"api-key": "the api key"}
NiceHttp.values_for = { region: 'europe', customerId: 334 }

http1 = NiceHttp.new()

http2 = NiceHttp.new()

http3 = NiceHttp.new("https://example.com")

If you prefer to supply a hash to change the default settings for NiceHttp:

NiceHttp.defaults = {
    host: 'reqres.in',
    ssl: true,
    port: 443,
    timeout: 15, #seconds
    debug: false,
    log: "./my_logs.log",
    headers: {"api-key": "the api key"}
}

To add a fixed path that would be added automatically to all your requests just before the specified request path, you can do it by adding it to host:

http = NiceHttp.new('https://v2.namsor.com/NamSorAPIv2/')

resp = http.get('/api2/json/gender/Peter/Moon')
# The get request path will be: /NamSorAPIv2/api2/json/gender/Peter/Moon on server v2.namsor.com

resp = http.get('/api2/json/gender/Love/Sun?ret=true')
# The get request path will be: /NamSorAPIv2/api2/json/gender/Love/Sun on server v2.namsor.com

Creating requests

You can use hash requests to simplify the management of your requests, for example creating a file specifying all the requests for your Customers API.

The keys you can use:

path: relative or absolute path, for example: "/api2/customers/update.do"

headers: specific headers for the request. It will include a hash with the values.

data: the data to be sent for example a JSON string. In case of supplying a Hash, Nice Http will assume that is a JSON and will convert it to a JSON string before sending the request and will add to the headers: 'Content-Type': 'application/json'

mock_response: In case of use_mocks=true then NiceHttp will return this response

Let's guess you have a file with this data for your requests on /requests/example.rb:

module Requests

  module Example
    
    # simple get request example
    def self.list_of_users()
        {
            path: "/api/users?page=2"
        }
    end

    # post request example using a request hash that will be converted automatically to a json string
    def self.create_user_hash()
        {
            path: "/api/users",
            data: { 
                name: "morpheus",
                job: "leader"
                }
        }
    end

    # post request example using a JSON string
    def self.create_user_raw()
        {
            path: "/api/users",
            headers: {"Content-Type": "application/json"},
            data: '{"name": "morpheus","job": "leader"}'
        }
    end

  end

end

Then in your code you can require this request file and use it like this:

resp = http.get Requests::Example.list_of_users 

pp resp.code

resp = http.post Requests::Example.create_user_hash

pp resp.data.json


resp = http.post Requests::Example.create_user_raw

pp resp.data.json(:job)

In case you want to modify the request before sending it, for example just changing one field but the rest will be the same, you can supply a new key :values_for in the request hash that will contain a hash with the keys to be changed and NiceHttp will perform the necessary changes at any level:

req = Requests::Example.create_user_hash
req.values_for = {job: "developer"}

resp = http.post req

pp resp.data.json
#response: {:name=>"morpheus", :job=>"developer", :id=>"192", :createdAt=>"2018-12-14T14:41:54.371Z"}

If the request hash contains a key :method with one of these possible values: :get, :head, :delete, :post or :patch, then it is possible to use the send_request method and pass just the request hash:

     req= {
            path: "/api/users",
            method: :post,
            data: { 
                name: "morpheus",
                job: "leader"
            }
          }
     resp = @http.send_request req

You can always access to the last request as a Hash object by: NiceHttp.request

If you want to change the value of all headers using the value of the request on runtime, use lambda, NiceHttp.requests and NiceHttp.request:

NiceHttp.requests = {
  headers: {
    Referer: lambda { "http://myserver.com" + NiceHttp.request.path }
  }
}

You can use NiceHttp.requests to specify certain headers, path parameters or data or values_for that will apply on all requests sent.

NiceHttp.requests = {
  path: 'api-version=2022-12-09&testing=true',
  data: {
    properties: {
      language: 'eng-us'
    }
  }
}

Lambdas can be used also on data and values_for to change the payloads in real-time. In case the lambda returns 'nil' the key won't be added to the request.

NiceHttp.requests = {
    data: {
      zones: lambda { ENV['ZONES'] if NiceHttp.request[:method] == 'PUT' and NiceHttp.request[:path].match?(/^\/api\/users\/\d+/)}
    },
    values_for: {
      region: lambda { 'Europe' if NiceHttp.request[:name] == 'Users.add' }
    }
  }

Responses

The response will include at least the keys:

code: the http code response, for example: 200

message: the http message response, for example: "OK"

data: the data response structure. In case of json we can get it as a hash by using: resp.data.json. Also you can filter the json structure and get what you want: resp.data.json(:loginname, :address)

Also interesting keys would be: time_elapsed_total, time_elapsed and many more available

Async responses

In case a 202 response and set the async settings, it will wait until the operation finishes and will return the result:

NiceHttp.async_wait_seconds = 10
NiceHttp.async_header = 'location'
NiceHttp.async_completed = 'percComplete'
NiceHttp.async_resource = 'resourceName'
NiceHttp.async_status = 'status'

http = NiceHttp.new('https://exampleSinatra.tcblues.repl.co')

response = http.get '/async'
pp response # =>
{ :code=>"202",
  :message=>"Accepted",
  :location=>"https://exampleSinatra.tcblues.repl.co/operation/667",
  :data=>"{\"result\":\"this is an async operation id: 667\"}",
  :async=>
    { :seconds=>4,
      :data=>
        "{'percComplete':100,'resourceName':'/resource/766','status':'Done','operationId':'667'}",
      :status=>"Done",
      :resource=>{:data=>"{'resourceId':'766','lolo':'lala'}"}
    }
  # plus other keys
}

p response.code # 202
p response.location # "https://exampleSinatra.tcblues.repl.co/operation/667"
p response.data.json # {:result=>"this is an async operation id: 667"} 
p response.async.data.json # {:percComplete=>100, :resourceName=>"/resource/766", :status=>"Done",:operationId=>667}
p response.async.status # Done
p response.async.seconds # 4
p response.async.resource.data.json # {:resourceId=>"766", :lolo=>"lala"}

Special settings

debug: (true or false) it will set the connecition on debug mode so you will be able to see the whole communication with the server in detail

log: (:no, :screen, :file, :file_run, :fix_file, "filename") it will log the basic communication for inspect. In case you want to add extra info to your logs you can do it for example adding to your code: http.logger.info "example extra log"

headers: Hash containing the headers for the communication

cookies: Hash containing the cookies for the communication

proxy_port, proxy_host: in case you want to use a proxy for the connection

use_mocks: (true or false) in case of true if the request hash contains a mock_response key it will be returning that response instead of trying to send the request.

auto_redirect: (true or false) in case of true it will take care of the auto redirections.

timeout: Integer that will set a time out for the time waiting to connect to a host or waiting for a response.

Authentication requests

All we need to do is to add to our request the correct authentication tokens, seeds, headers.

Basic Authentication

For example for Basic Authentication we need to add to the authorization header a seed generated with the user and password we want ot authenticate

@http = NiceHttp.new("https://jigsaw.w3.org/")

@http.headers.authorization = NiceHttpUtils.basic_authentication(user: "guest", password: "guest")

# headers will be in this example: {:authorization=>"Basic Z3Vlc3Q6Z3Vlc3Q=\n"}

resp = @http.get("/HTTP/Basic/")

In case you want to use strict base64 use the option strict: true

Remember for other kind of authentication systems NiceHttp take care of the redirections and cookies that are requested to be set. In case you need to add a header with a token you can add it by using your NiceHttp object and the key headers, for example:

@http.headers.tokenuno = "xxx"
# headers => {tokenuno: "xxx"}

#another way:
@http.headers[:tokendos] = "yyy"
# headers => {tokenuno: "xxx", tokendos: "yyyy"}

In case you want or need to control the redirections by yourself instead of allowing NiceHttp to do it, then set @http.auto_redirect = false

OpenID

An example using OpenID authentication:

server = "https://samples.auth0.com/"
path="/authorize?client_id=kbyuFDidLLm280LIwVFiazOqjO3ty8KH&response_type=code"

@http = NiceHttp.new(server)

resp = @http.get(path)

p "With autoredirection:"
p "Cookies: "
p @http.cookies
p "Code: #{resp.code} #{resp.message} "
p "*"*40

@http2 = NiceHttp.new(server)
@http2.auto_redirect = false

resp = @http2.get(path)

p "Without autoredirection:"
p "Cookies: "
p @http2.cookies
p "Code: #{resp.code} #{resp.message} "

The output:

"With autoredirection:"
"Cookies: "
{"/"=>{"auth0"=>"s%3A6vEEwmmIf-9YAG-NjvsOIyZAh-NS97jj.yFSXILdmCov6DRwXjEei3q3eHIrxZxHI4eg4%2BTpUaK4"}, 
       "/usernamepassword/login"=>{"_csrf"=>"bboZ0koMScwXkISzWaAMTYdY"}}
"Code: 200 OK "
"****************************************"
"Without autoredirection:"
"Cookies: "
{"/"=>{"auth0"=>"s%3AcKndc44gllWyJv8FLztUIctuH4b__g0V.QEF3SOobK8%2FvX89iUKzGbfSP4Vt2bRtY2WH7ygBUkg4"}}
"Code: 302 Found "

OAuth2

You can see on the next link how to get the OAuth2 token for Microsoft Azure and add it to your Http connection header.

https://gist.github.com/MarioRuiz/d3525185024737885c0c9afa6dc8b9e5

JWT token

An example for Google using JWT

my_json_key_file.json:

{
  "type": "service_account",
  "project_id": "example",
  "private_key_id": "fjdslkafldkasfadsjflkjdsaklfjasdklfjlkdsjfl",
  "private_key": "-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----....==\n-----END PRIVATE KEY-----\n",
  "client_email": "example@example.iam.gserviceaccount.com",
  "client_id": "46545646",
  "auth_uri": "https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth",
  "token_uri": "https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token",
  "auth_provider_x509_cert_url": "https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/certs",
  "client_x509_cert_url": "https://www.googleapis.com/robot/v1/metadata/x509/example%40example.iam.gserviceaccount.com"
}

    require 'jwt'
    require 'nice_hash'
    def generate_jwt(audience, json_key_file)
      json = File.open(json_key_file).read.json
      now = Time.new
      payload = {
        iss: json.client_email,
        sub: json.client_email,
        aud: audience,
        exp: (now + 3600).to_i,
        iat: (now - 60).to_i,
        kid: json.private_key_id
      }
      jwt_token = JWT.encode payload, OpenSSL::PKey::RSA.new(json.private_key), "RS256"
      return jwt_token
    end

    NiceHttp.headers = {
      Authorization: lambda { "Bearer " + generate_jwt('https:/myhost.com', './my_json_key_file.json') }
    }

lambda on headers

If you need a new token every time a new http connection is created you can use lambda

NiceHttp.headers[:Authorization] = lambda {get_token()}

NiceHttp will call the get_token method you created every time a new connection is created.

Http logs

You can set where the http logs will be stored by using the log attribute of the NiceHttp. By default they will be stored in your root directory with the name nice_http.log.

    # you can specify the default for all connections
    NiceHttp.log = :file_run

    # also you can specify for a concrete connection
    http = NiceHttp.new({host: 'www.example.com', log: './example.log'})

Other values you can supply:

• :fix_file, will log the communication on nice_http.log. (default).
• :no, won't generate any logs.
• :screen, will print the logs on the screen.
• :file, will be generated a log file with name: nice_http_YY-mm-dd-HHMMSS.log.
• :file_run, will generate a log file with the name where the object was created and extension .log, fex: myfile.rb.log
• String, the path and file name where the logs will be stored.

In case you want to hide the header values from the requests on the logs use the option log_headers. Possible values:

• :all, (default), will log all header values.
• :none, won't log any value of the headers.
• :partial, will log only the last 10 characters of the header values.

Example of logs:

I, [2019-03-22T18:38:58.518964 #29412]  INFO -- : (47266856647720): Http connection created. host:reqres.in,  port:443,  ssl:true, mode:, proxy_host: , proxy_port:  
I, [2019-03-22T18:38:58.537106 #29412]  INFO -- : (47266856647720): Http connection: https://reqres.in:443


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
POST Request: Doom.example
 path: /api/users
 headers: {Loop:44, Cookie:, Boom:33, Content-Type:application/json, }
 data: {
  "name": "peter",
  "job": "leader",
  "products": [
    {
      "one": "uno",
      "two": 2
    },
    {
      "one": "uno",
      "two": 22
    }
  ]
}

I, [2019-03-22T18:38:58.873935 #29412]  INFO -- : 
RESPONSE: 
 201:Created
 time_elapsed_total: '0.335720719'
 time_elapsed: '0.335728095'
 date: 'Fri, 22 Mar 2019 18:38:58 GMT'
 content-type: 'application/json; charset=utf-8'
 content-length: '172'
 connection: 'keep-alive'
 set-cookie: '__cfduid=dfb962e62cd8386ce4ab9bad601611553272738; expires=Sat, 21-Mar-20 18:38:58 GMT; path=/; domain=.reqres.in; HttpOnly'
 x-powered-by: 'Express'
 access-control-allow-origin: '*'
 etag: 'W/"ac-EMh4XBmK5vry/OeKaGWILGtmHU0"'
 expect-ct: 'max-age=604800, report-uri="https://report-uri.cloudflare.com/cdn-cgi/beacon/expect-ct"'
 server: 'cloudflare'
 cf-ray: '4bb99958090dbf89-AMS'
 data: '{
  "name": "peter",
  "job": "leader",
  "products": [
    {
      "one": "uno",
      "two": 2
    },
    {
      "one": "uno",
      "two": 22
    }
  ],
  "id": "628",
  "createdAt": "2019-03-22T18:43:33.619Z"
}'

I, [2019-03-22T18:38:58.874190 #29412]  INFO -- : set-cookie added to Cookie header as required
I, [2019-03-22T18:38:59.075293 #29412]  INFO -- : 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
GET Request: Doom.example
 path: /api/users
 Same headers and data as in the previous request.
I, [2019-03-22T18:38:59.403459 #29412]  INFO -- : 
RESPONSE: 
 200:OK
 time_elapsed_total: '0.327002338'
 time_elapsed: '0.327004766'
 date: 'Fri, 22 Mar 2019 18:38:59 GMT'
 content-type: 'application/json; charset=utf-8'
 transfer-encoding: 'chunked'
 connection: 'keep-alive'
 x-powered-by: 'Express'
 access-control-allow-origin: '*'
 etag: 'W/"1bb-D+c3sZ5g5u/nmLPQRl1uVo2heAo"'
 expect-ct: 'max-age=604800, report-uri="https://report-uri.cloudflare.com/cdn-cgi/beacon/expect-ct"'
 server: 'cloudflare'
 cf-ray: '4bb9995b5c20bf89-AMS'
 data: '{
  "page": 1,
  "per_page": 3,
  "total": 12,
  "total_pages": 4,
  "data": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "first_name": "George",
      "last_name": "Bluth",
      "avatar": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/uifaces/faces/twitter/calebogden/128.jpg"
    },
    {
      "id": 2,
      "first_name": "Janet",
      "last_name": "Weaver",
      "avatar": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/uifaces/faces/twitter/josephstein/128.jpg"
    },
  ]
}'

If you want to get the last request sent or the last response as a message use NiceHttp.last_request or NiceHttp.last_response. If you want to access the last request as a Hash use NiceHttp.request

Also you can collect all data sent and received by setting NiceHttp.capture = true and all data will be stored on NiceHttp.captured as an Array of Strings (Request+Response).

Multithreading

In case you want to use multithread and log in different files every thread, add an unique name for the thread then the logs will be stored accordingly

require 'nice_http'

threads = []

40.times do |num|
    threads << Thread.new do
        Thread.current.name = num.to_s
        http = NiceHttp.new("https://reqres.in")
        request = {
          path: '/api/users',
          data: { name: 'morpheus', job: 'leader' },
        }
        http.post(request)
    end
end

threads.each(&:join)

# log files: nice_http_0.log, nice_http_1.log... nice_http_39.log

Http stats

If you want to get a summarize stats of your http communication you need to set NiceHttp.create_stats = true

Then whenever you want to access the stats: NiceHttp.stats and if you want to save it on a file: NiceHttp.save_stats

After the run is finished the stats will automatically be saved even if you didn't call save_stats. The stats files will use the name and path on NiceHttp.log.

If you are using RSpec and you want to generate the stats files after every test is finished, add to your spec_helper.rb file:

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.after(:each) do
    NiceHttp.save_stats
  end
end

This is an example of the output:

---
reqres.in:443:
  :num_requests: 11
  :time_elapsed:
    :total: 2.947269038
    :maximum: 0.357101109
    :minimum: 0.198707111
    :average: 0.2679335489090909
  "/api/users":
    :num_requests: 11
    :time_elapsed:
      :total: 2.947269038
      :maximum: 0.357101109
      :minimum: 0.198707111
      :average: 0.2679335489090909
    :method:
      POST:
        :num_requests: 8
        :time_elapsed:
          :total: 2.3342455970000002
          :maximum: 0.357101109
          :minimum: 0.198707111
          :average: 0.29178069962500003
        :response:
          '201':
            :num_requests: 8
            :time_elapsed:
              :total: 2.3342455970000002
              :maximum: 0.357101109
              :minimum: 0.198707111
              :average: 0.29178069962500003
      GET:
        :num_requests: 3
        :time_elapsed:
          :total: 0.613023441
          :maximum: 0.210662528
          :minimum: 0.200197583
          :average: 0.20434114699999997
        :response:
          '200':
            :num_requests: 3
            :time_elapsed:
              :total: 0.613023441
              :maximum: 0.210662528
              :minimum: 0.200197583
              :average: 0.20434114699999997

If you want to add specific stats for your processes you can use the method NiceHttp.add_stats

   # random customer name
   customer_name = "10-20:L".gen
   started = Time.now
   @http.send_request Requests::Customer.add_customer(name: customer_name)
   30.times do
      resp = @http.get(Requests::Customer.get_customer(name: customer_name))
      break if resp.code == 200
      sleep 0.5
   end
   NiceHttp.add_stats(:customer, :create, started, Time.now)

To add the items for every specific stats to be accessed as an array you can add it as the last parameter of add_stats

NiceHttp.add_stats(:customer, :create, started, Time.now, customer_name)

This will generate an items key that will contain an array of the values you added.

Tips

Download a file

• Direct download:

resp = NiceHttp.new("https://github.com").get("/MarioRuiz/slack-smart-bot/blob/master/slack-smart-bot.png", save_data: './tmp/')

• Get the data and store it like you want:

resp = NiceHttp.new("https://github.com").get("/MarioRuiz/slack-smart-bot/blob/master/slack-smart-bot.png")
File.open('./slack-smart-bot.png', 'wb') { |fp| fp.write(resp.data) }

Send multipart content

Example posting a csv file:

	require 'net/http/post/multipart'
	request = {
		path: "/customer/profile/",
		headers: {'Content-Type' => 'multipart/form-data'},
		data: (Net::HTTP::Post::Multipart.new "/customer/profile/",
		  "file" => UploadIO.new("./path/to/my/file.csv", "text/csv"))
	}
	response=@http.post(request)

Send x-www-form-urlencoded

    request = {
      headers: { 'Content-Type': "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"},
      path: "/register",
      data: {
        "firstname": "test@example.com",
        "lastname": "example"
      }
    }

Contributing

Bug reports are very welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/marioruiz/nice_http.

If you want to contribute please follow GitHub Flow

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.