An API over Hacker News
mechanize (>= 1.0.0) require_all (>= 1.1.0)
gem install ruby-hackernews
then, in your script:
require 'ruby-hackernews'
before using it. If you want to include the namespace (RubyHackernews), add
include RubyHackernews
otherwise, you’ll have to access the gem’s classes adding the module, like this:
RubyHackernews::Entry.all
You can get entries on the main page with:
Entry.all # returns the main page's entries as an array
You can provide a number of pages:
Entry.all(3) # will return the entries on the first 3 pages
There are methods for getting specific entry types:
Entry.questions # gets the first page of questions (ask NH) Entry.newest # gets the first page of new links (new) Entry.jobs # gets the first page of job offerts (jobs)
You can also get a single entry by its ID:
Entry.find(3102321) # gets that specific entry (warning: number will be 0!)
Each Entry instance has the following data:
entry = Entry.all.first # gets the top entry on the mainpage entry.number # the entry's position on HN entry.link.title # the link's name on HN entry.link.href # the actual link entry.link.site # the referring site, if any entry.voting.score # the entry's score on HN entry.user.name # the submitter's user name entry.time # the elapsed time from submission
After you’ve logged in (see below) you can do the following
entry.upvote # votes the entry entry.write_comment("mycomment") # adds a comment to the entry Entry.submit("mytitle", "myurl") # submit a new link Entry.submit("myquestion", "question text") # submit a new question user.submissions.first.comments_url # returns the url to the current user's comments
You get an entry’s comments with:
entry.comments
Note that the method above will send a request to HN. If you just need the comments’ count or url, you can instead use:
entry.comments_count
and
entry.comment_url
Either of which will not issue a request to HN’s site.
You can also get the newest comments on HN with:
Comments.newest Comments.newest(3) # gets the first 3 pages of new comments
Each Comment instance has the following data:
comment = Entry.all.first.comments.first # gets the first comment of the first entry on HN's main page comment.text # comment's body comment.user.name # poster's user name on HN comment.voting.score # comment's score
Comments are enumerable and threaded, so you can do like:
comment[2][0] # gets the third reply to this comment, then the first reply to the reply comment.first # gets the first reply to this comment comment.select do |c| # gets all the comment replies which text contains "test" text ~= /test/ end comment.parent # gets the comment's parent (nil if no parent)
Once you’re logged in (see below), you can do the following:
comment.upvote comment.downvote comment.reply("mycomment")
You define a user with:
user = User.new("username")
Then, you log in with:
user.login("password")
Or, you can create a new use with that name:
user.signup("password") # don't abuse this!
You will be also logged in with the new user. So, no need to call user#login after user#signup.
You can log out with:
user.logout
You have to log out before logging in with a different user.
You can also get the current users submission list by doing this:
user.submissions
This will return a new Entry instance. For example:
user.submissions.first.comment_url
Will return the HN comment url of the last submitted story of that user
Get user info (comments, saved) Change user info/settings
-
Mike Kelly ( github.com/mikekelly ) for fixing a bug in TimeInfo.time
-
Marc Köhlbrugge ( github.com/marckohlbrugge ) fox fixing and formatting the documentation
-
Peter Cooper ( github.com/peterc ) for bug reports
-
Peter Boctor ( github.com/boctor ) for fixing a bug about authentication
-
Josh Ellington ( github.com/joshellington ) for reporting a bug about job entries
-
Wayne ( github.com/BlissOfBeing ) for adding User.submissions, Entry.comments_url and cleaning up the Rakefile
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Daniel Da Cunha ( github.com/ddacunha ) for a fix on Entry#comments_count