WolframAlpha

Wolfram|Alpha introduces a fundamentally new way to get knowledge and answers— not by searching the web, but by doing dynamic computations based on a vast collection of built-in data, algorithms, and methods.

Installation

gem install wolfram-alpha

And that's it!

Usage

Creating a client instance:

require 'wolfram-alpha'

options = { "format" => "plaintext" } # see the reference appendix in the documentation.[1]

client = WolframAlpha::Client.new "MY-API-ID", options

External links:

  1. WolframAlpha API: Documentation

Querying the engine:

response = client.query "5 largest countries"

Handling responses:

input = response["Input"] # Get the input interpretation pod.
result = response.find { |pod| pod.title == "Result" } # Get the result pod.

puts "#{input.subpods[0].plaintext} = #{result.subpods[0].plaintext}"

# 5 largest countries | by total area = 1 | Russia | 1.708×10^7 km^2 |
# 2 | Canada | 9.985×10^6 km^2 |
# 3 | United States | 9.631×10^6 km^2 |
# 4 | China | 9.597×10^6 km^2 |
# 5 | Brazil | 8.515×10^6 km^2 |
# (vertical ellipsis) |   |   |

Beware that WolframAlpha::Response#[] is finding a pod by its id, and not by its title.

Contributing

  1. Fork it!
  2. Create your feature branch: git checkout -b my-new-feature
  3. Commit your changes: git commit -am 'Add some feature'
  4. Push to the branch: git push origin my-new-feature
  5. Submit a pull request

History

v0.3

  • Refactored the API.
  • Tidied up the code.

v0.2

  • Fixed query escaping.
  • Added documentation.

v0.1

  • Initial release.

Credits

Mikkel Kroman <[email protected]>

License

Copyright (c) 2013 Mikkel Kroman <[email protected]>

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.