databasedotcom
databasedotcom is a gem to enable ruby applications to access the SalesForce REST API. If you use bundler, simply list it in your Gemfile, like so:
gem 'databasedotcom'
If you don’t use bundler, install it by hand:
gem install databasedotcom
Documentation
Reference documentation is available at rubydoc.info
Source
Source is available at github
Usage
Initialization
When you create a Databasedotcom::Client object, you need to configure it with a client id and client secret that corresponds to one of the Remote Access Applications configured within your SalesForce instance. The SalesForce UI refers to the client id as “Consumer Key”, and to the client secret as “Consumer Secret”.
You can configure your Client object with a client id and client secret in one of several different ways:
Configuration from the environment
If configuration information is present in the environment, the new Client will take configuration information from there.
export DATABASEDOTCOM_CLIENT_ID=foo
export DATABASEDOTCOM_CLIENT_SECRET=
Then
client = Databasedotcom::Client.new
client.client_id #=> foo
client.client_secret #=> bar
Configuration from a YAML file
If you pass the name of a YAML file when you create a Client, the new Client will read the YAML file and take the client id and client secret values from there.
# databasedotcom.yml
#
---
client_secret: bro
client_id: baz
Then
client = Databasedotcom::Client.new("databasedotcom.yml")
client.client_id #=> bro
client.client_secret #=> baz
Configuration from a Hash
If you pass a hash when you create a Client, the new Client will take configuration information from that Hash.
client = Databasedotcom::Client.new :client_id => "sponge", :client_secret => "bob"
client.client_id #=> sponge
client.client_secret #=> bob
Configuration precedence
Configuration information present in the environment always takes precedence over that passed in via a YAML file or a Hash.
export DATABASEDOTCOM_CLIENT_ID=foo
export DATABASEDOTCOM_CLIENT_SECRET=
Then
client = Databasedotcom::Client.new :client_id => "sponge", :client_secret => "bob"
client.client_id #=> foo
client.client_secret #=> bar
Usage in an application deployed on Heroku
You can use the heroku config:add command to set environment variables:
heroku config:add DATABASEDOTCOM_CIENT_ID=foo
heroku config:add DATABASEDOTCOM_CIENT_SECRET=bar
Then, when you create your client like:
client = Databasedotcom::Client.new
it will use the configuration information that you set with heroku config:add.
Authentication
The first thing you need to do with the new Client is to authenticate with SalesForce. You can do this in one of several ways:
Authentication via an externally-acquired OAuth access token
If you have acquired an OAuth access token for your SalesForce instance through some external means, you can use it. Note that you have to pass both the token and your SalesForce instance URL to the authenticate method:
client.authenticate :token => "my-oauth-token", :instance_url => "http://na1.salesforce.com" #=> "my-oauth-token"
Authentication via Omniauth
If you are using the gem within the context of a web application, and your web app is using Omniauth to do OAuth with SalesForce, you can authentication the Client direction via the Hash that Omniauth passes to your OAuth callback method, like so:
client.authenticate request.env['omniauth.auth'] #=> "the-oauth-token"
Authentication via username and password
You can authenticate your Client directly with SalesForce with a valid username and password for a user in your SalesForce instance. Note that, if access to your SalesForce instance requires a security token, the value that you pass for :password must be the password for the user concatenated with her security token.
client.authenticate :username => "[email protected]", :password => "ThePasswordTheSecurityToken" #=> "the-oauth-token"
Accessing the Sobject API
You can retrieve a list of Sobject defined in your SalesForce instance like so:
client.list_sobjects #=> ['User', 'Group', 'Contact']
Once you have the name of an Sobject, the easiest way to interact with it is to first materialize it:
contact_class = client.materialize("Contact") #=> Contact
By default, Sobject classes are materialized into the global namespace- if you want materialize into another module, you can easily do configure this:
client.sobject_module = My::Module
client.materialize("Contact") #=> My::Module::Contact
Materialized Sobject classes behave much like ActiveRecord classes:
contact = Contact.find("contact_id") #=> #<Contact @Id="contact_id", ...>
contact = Contact.find_by_Name("John Smith") #=> dynamic finders!
contacts = Contact.all #=> a Databasedotcom::Collection of Contact instances
contacts = Contact.find_all_by_Company("IBM") #=> a Databasedotcom::Collection of matching Contacts
contact.Name #=> the contact's Name attribute
contact["Name"] #=> same thing
contact.Name = "new name" #=> change the contact's Name attribute, in memory
contact["Name"] = "new name" #=> same thing
contact.save #=> save the changes to the database
contact.update_attributes "Name" => "newer name",
"Phone" => "4156543210" #=> change several attributes at once and save them
contact.delete #=> delete the contact from the database
See the documentation for full details.
Accessing the Chatter API
You can easily access Chatter feeds, group, conversations, etc.:
my_feed_items = Databasedotcom::Chatter::UserProfileFeed.find(client) #=> a Databasedotcom::Collection of FeedItems
my_feed_items.each do |feed_item|
feed_item.likes #=> a Databasedotcom::Collection of Like instances
feed_item.comments #=> a Databasedotcom::Collection of Comment instances
feed_item.raw_hash #=> the hash returned from the Chatter API describing this FeedItem
feed_item.comment("This is cool") #=> create a new comment on the FeedItem
feed_item.like #=> the authenticating user likes the FeedItem
end
me = Databasedotcom::Chatter::User.find(client, "me") #=> a User for the authenticating user
me.followers #=> a Databasedotcom::Collection of Users
me.post_status("what I'm doing now") #=> post a new status
you = Databasedotcom::Chatter::User.find(client, "your-user-id")
me.follow(you) #=> start following a user
See the documentation for full details.
License
This gem is licensed under the MIT License.