Ubidots Ruby API Client

The Ubidots Ruby API Client makes calls to the ‘Ubidots Api <things.ubidots.com/api>`_.

Installation

Add this line to your application’s Gemfile:.

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ruby

gem 'ubidots'

And then execute:

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bash

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

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bash

$ gem install ubidots

Connecting to the API

Before playing with the API you should connect to it using your private API key, which can be found ‘in your profile <app.ubidots.com/userdata/api/>`_.

If you don’t have an account yet, you can ‘create one here <app.ubidots.com/accounts/signup/>`_.

Once you have your API key, you can connect to the API by creating an ApiClient instance. Let’s assume your API key is: “7fj39fk3044045k89fbh34rsd9823jkfs8323”. Then your code would look like this:

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ruby

require 'ubidots'

@api = Ubidots::ApiClient.new("7fj39fk3044045k89fbh34rsd9823jkfs8323")

Now you have an instance of ApiClient (“api”) which can be used to connect to the Ubidots API.

Saving a new Value to a Variable

Retrieve the variable you’d like the value to be saved to:

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ruby

my_variable = @api.get_variable('56799cf1231b28459f976417')

Given the instantiated variable, you can save a new value with the following line:

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ruby

new_value = my_variable.save_value( {'value'=>10} )

You can also specify a timestamp (optional):

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ruby

new_value = my_variable.save_value( {'value'=>10, 'timestamp'=>1376061804407} )

If no timestamp is specified, the API server will assign the current time to it. We think it’s always better for you to specify the timestamp so the record reflects the exact time the value was captured, not the time it arrived to our servers.

Creating a Data Source

As you might know by now, a data source represents a device that’s generating time-series data.

This line creates a new data source:

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ruby

new_datasource = @api.create_datasource( {"name"=>"myNewDs", "tags"=>["firstDs", "new"], "description"=>"any des"} )

The ‘name’ key is required, but the ‘tags’ and ‘description’ keys are optional. This new data source can be used to track different variables, so let’s create one.

Creating a Variable

A variable is a time-series containing different values over time. Let’s create one:

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ruby

new_variable = new_datasource.create_variable( {"name"=>"myNewVar", "unit"=>"Nw"} )

The ‘name’ and ‘unit’ keys are required.

Getting Values

To get the values of a variable, use the method get_values in an instance of the class Variable. This will return a values array.

If you only want the last N values call the method with the number of elements you want.

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ruby

all_values = my_variable.get_values()

Getting a group of Data Sources

If you want to get all your data sources you can a method on the ApiClient instance directly. This method return a objects Datasource array.

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ruby

all_datasources = @api.get_datasources()

Getting a specific Data source

Each data source is identified by an ID. A specific data source can be retrieved from the server using this ID.

For example, if a data source has the id 51c99cfdf91b28459f976414, it can be retrieved as follows:

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ruby

my_specific_datasource = @api.get_datasource('51c99cfdf91b28459f976414')

Getting a group of Variables from a Data source

You can also retrieve some or all of the variables of a data source:

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ruby

all_variables_of_datasource =  my_datasource.get_variables()

Getting a specific Variable

As with data sources, you can use your variable’s ID to retrieve the details about it:

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ruby

my_specific_variable = @api.get_variable('56799cf1231b28459f976417')