caboose

wanna write your own api to a service that doesn't offer one (*cough* campfire) Here's how we went about writing a subversion post-commit bot for campfire.. Get out there and make some cool services!

step one:

set up a http request to grab some authentication.

#!/usr/bin/ruby
require 'net/http'
require 'open-uri'
require 'cgi'

domain = "yoursite.campfirenow.com"
sekrit_invite_link = "12345"

req = Net::HTTP::Post.new("#{domain}/#{sekrit_invite_link}")
req.set_form_data({'name' => 'my_bot', 'remember' => 'ON'})
res = Net::HTTP.new(domain, 80).start { |http| http.request(req) }

step two:

grab the cookie out of the response, as well as the room's location

room_id = res['location'].scan(/room\/(\d+)/).to_s
req2 = Net::HTTP::Get.new(res['location'])
req2.initialize_http_header({'Cookie'=>res['set-cookie']})
res2 = Net::HTTP.new(domain, 80).start { |http| http.request(req2) }

step three:

post a message to the room!

message = "Monkeys rule!"
req3 = Net::HTTP::Get.new("/room/#{room_id}/speak?message=#{CGI.escape(message)}")
req3.initialize_http_header({'Cookie'=>res2['set-cookie']})
res3 = Net::HTTP.new(domain, 80).start { |http| http.request(req3) }

Step four

customize your bot. For a subversion monkey, that last step starts something like

author = "Author: " + `#{svnlook} author -r #{ARGV[1]} #{ARGV[0]}`
paths  = `#{svnlook} changed -r #{ARGV[1]} #{ARGV[0]}`
log    = `#{svnlook} log -r #{ARGV[1]} #{ARGV[0]}`
message = [author, paths, log].join("\r\n")
req3 = Net::HTTP::Get.new("/room/#{room_id}/speak?paste=true&message=#{CGI.escape(message)}")

The paste=true is important because it tells campfire to display the message as a "paste".

The lesson

Give us an API, or we'll write our own! Oh yeah, and if the service requires ajax? Hah, we can fake it!

req.add_field 'X-Requested-With', 'XMLHttpRequest'
req.add_field 'X-Prototype-Version', '1.5.0_pre0'