CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby
noMAD
noMAD

Reputation: 7844

What class does this method (read) come from (open-uri ruby)

I read some code like:

source = URI.join(uri).read

This basically goes to the URI, and stores the source of the webpage in the variable.

I tried this in IRB:

URI.join(uri).class

and it returned URI::HTTP, but, when I tried URI.join(uri).read.class => String.

I checked String class but there is no read method there.

I want to stub this method but am not able to because I don't know where it comes from.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1482

Answers (2)

David Moles
David Moles

Reputation: 51093

Rather than stub URI.read() (provided by OpenURI as noted in the Tin Man's answer), consider using a library like WebMock that can intercept HTTP requests regardless of the exact mechanism used to make them.

Upvotes: 0

the Tin Man
the Tin Man

Reputation: 160551

read is from Ruby's StringIO module, which acts like the normal IO class.

OpenURI provides read via the StringIO class, which is how it fools us, and our code, into thinking the URL is a device we can read from.

URI.join(uri).read.class returns String because the page is read from the site pointed to by the URL, and the content is a string. OpenURI overrides the URI class and adds read to it. If you try:

require 'uri'
URI.join('http://example.com').read

without having required OpenURI, you'll get an error because, by itself, URI doesn't know how to read.

URI.join('http://example.com')
=> #<URI::HTTP:0x0000010292de68 URL:http://example.com>

URI.join('http://example.com').read
NoMethodError: undefined method `read' for #<URI::HTTP:0x0000010218b3b8 URL:http://example.com>

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions