Design decisions when writing an API wrapper with HTTParty in Ruby

Question

I'm writing an API wrapper in Ruby and not sure how to proceed. HTTParty is very nice and takes care of everything for me, but on HTTParty::get it returns an HTTParty::Response object.

I want to know, is it better to:

1. Let the user work with the HTTParty::Response object directly
2. Convert to a Hash somehow?
3. Create an instance of a class that has attributes/fields as the keys in the Response object?

Answer 1

I'm working on a project where I do #3 actually. I use HTTParty to convert the data to a hash and then use the hash to create a related set of ActiveRecord classes. It's easier to manipulate the data (do validation for example) in a Ruby class than it is to leave it in the raw hash.