ruby, sinatra, Plivo API: render API call as HTML

Question

I am making an API call to Plivo to list available telephone numbers.

I can access the returned response and print the desired elements in my terminal BUT I do not know how to render them as HTML on my web page. This is my problem.

In the terminal, the response to a successful call is:

  {"api_id"=>"23f1f0f0-0808-11e3-a442-22000ac6194a",
 "meta"=>
  {"limit"=>1, "next"=>nil, "offset"=>0, "previous"=>nil, "total_count"=>1},
 "objects"=>
  [{"group_id"=>"23928520636825",
    "number_type"=>"local",
    "prefix"=>"646",
    "region"=>"New York, UNITED STATES",
    "rental_rate"=>"0.80000",
    "resource_uri"=>
     "/v1/Account/MAZDQ1ZJIYMDZKMMZKYM/AvailableNumberGroup/23928520636825/",
    "setup_rate"=>"0.00000",
    "sms_enabled"=>true,
    "sms_rate"=>"0.00800",
    "stock"=>50,
    "voice_enabled"=>true,
    "voice_rate"=>"0.00900"}]}
"0.00900"
New York, UNITED STATES
646

The Ajax script which generates the response is:

$(".localsearch").click(function() {
    var country_iso = $("#local").val();
    var region = $("#region").val();
    var prefix = $("#prefix").val();
    $.ajax({
    type: "GET",
    url: "/local/data",
    data: { 'country_iso' : country_iso,  'region' : region,  'prefix' : prefix },
    success: function(data) { 
    alert(data)
            },
     });
 });

The alert doesn't help and just shows the entire page.

The ruby code is:

get '/local/data' do
      country_iso =  params[:country_iso]
      region = params[:region]
      prefix = params[:prefix]
      p = RestAPI.new(AUTH_ID, AUTH_TOKEN)
      params = {'country_iso' => country_iso, 'region' => region, 'prefix' => prefix, 'limit' => '1'}
      response = p.get_number_group(params)
      obj = response.last
      pp response.last 
      @region = obj["objects"][0]["region"]
      puts @region
      @prefix = obj["objects"][0]["prefix"]
      puts @prefix
     erb :search
end

So, sorry it's long and to summarize, how do I extract elements from the API response and print them as HTML? Many thanks in advance.

In the view I have tried:

<%= @region %> and <%= obj['region'] %> and <%= obj['objects][0]['region'] %>and none of them work.

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:31

Yours is a perfect use case of of rendering a partial through a ajax call. So what you can do is:

Make your Sinatra action return html using rails like render partial functionality like this http://steve.dynedge.co.uk/2010/04/14/render-rails-style-partials-in-sinatra/ (to get rails like partial functionality in sinatra you can use this gem also https://rubygems.org/gems/sinatra-partial )

Now since now your sinatra action returns a valid html, in your ajax success function you can just write:

$(".localsearch").click(function() {
var country_iso = $("#local").val();
var region = $("#region").val();
var prefix = $("#prefix").val();
$.ajax({
   type: "GET",
   url: "/local/data",
   data: { 'country_iso' : country_iso,  'region' : region,  'prefix' : prefix },
   success: function(data) { 
      $('unique_identifier_of_your_partial_on_the_html_dom').html(response)
   }
});

});

another example of rendering partial in sinatra: Ruby w/ Sinatra: Could I have an example of a jQuery AJAX request?

extract out the html that you want to populate with the response from this ajax call into a a separate erb file lets say , _my_response_partial.html.erb now suppose this is your search.html.erb file.

#something somrthing
<%= erb(:my_response_partial, locals => {:region => @region, :prefix => @prefix},:layout => false) %> #pass whatever data you want to pass to a partial using locales
# something something

and in your get action replace the last line with:

erb(:my_response_partial, locals => {:region => @region, :prefix => @prefix},:layout => false)

By this way your action will just return the html required to populate that partial.

sorry, this is a little above my paygrade. You are saying I should rename the erb to erb :search, :layout => false? The what do I put in the search view page to print the Html? Thank you! — user1903663, Aug 18 '13 at 15:19
I am afraid I am running into problems: the whole HTML page is repeated in the placeholder using the method you describe above. — user1903663, Aug 18 '13 at 15:43
trust me this is not above your paygrade :). your are already halfway through by replacing html returned in your get action. All you need to do is to return only that much part of the html as you need to populate and not the complete search.html.erb . I have updated my answer a bit. let me know if you still face any problem. — Sahil Dhankhar, Aug 18 '13 at 16:22
Thanks, I am really sorry I have tried to understand this. Could you be a little more specific? $('unique_identfier etc') means the class or id of a div, for example? so: $("#results").html(response)? and "-" means in the ruby code snippet, I put erb :_search, layout => false ? Is that what you mean? But in fact the name of the erb is just search.erb not _search.erb? — user1903663, Aug 18 '13 at 17:03

ruby, sinatra, Plivo API: render API call as HTML

1 Answers1