The httpx gem provides a simple and flexible way to make HTTP requests in Ruby. It wraps the standard library's Net::HTTP with a cleaner API and useful features like persistent connections and timeouts.
Getting Started
To install httpx:
gem install httpxThen require it in your code:
require 'httpx'Making a basic GET request is simple:
response = HTTPX.get("https://example.com")The response contains the status code, headers, and body:
puts response.code # 200
puts response.headers["Content-Type"] # "text/html"
puts response.body # "<html>...</html>"Configuring Requests
You can customize requests in a variety of ways:
response = HTTPX.get("https://example.com",
params: {key: "value"}, # query string parameters
headers: {Authorization: "Bearer xyz"} # custom headers
) Set timeouts, follow redirects, attach cookies, and more.
Handling Responses
httpx makes it easy to handle common status codes:
begin
response = HTTPX.get("https://example.com/does_not_exist")
rescue HTTPX::NotFound
puts "Whoops, resource not found!"
endIt raises custom errors for 400, 500, and other status codes.
Persistent Connections
Creating a client reuse TCP connections:
client = HTTPX::Client.new
client.get("https://example.com/1")
client.get("https://example.com/2") # reuses connectionThis avoids overhead of creating new connections.
httpx wraps and simplifies Ruby's HTTP client with a clean interface, while providing useful functionality like persistent connections. It's great for APIs, web scraping, and tasks involving HTTP requests.