Using HTTParty to create a Web API in rails

Question

I have decided to use gem HTTParty to implement my Web API in rails. I found a great article, Personal Weather API, that explained thing very well.

For my own purposes though I have created 2 Rails Applications on my own server and I want to use one of them to GET/POST data from the second application.

Can I do this without an API KEY for the sake of getting it up and running? Any examples out there to get this setup for development purposes?

Answer 1

You can always define your API key requirements in an environment file. This way you could define different keys for different environments and postpone any production-related decisions for a later stage.

For example in your development.rb you could have something like this:

config.my_api_key = "TESTING"

which would allow you to use an easy to remember value for your testing purposes.

When you test for the key validity you compare of course against the environment-specific key as in:

if params[:api_key] == Rails.configuration.my_api_key
  # ...

You can have different keys for testing, development, staging, and so on.