How to make a HTTP request using Ruby on Rails?

Question

I would like to take information from another website. Therefore (maybe) I should make a request to that website (in my case a HTTP GET request) and receive the response.

How can I make this in Ruby on Rails?

If it is possible, is it a correct approach to use in my controllers?

Answer 1

You can use Ruby's Net::HTTP class:

require 'net/http'

url = URI.parse('http://www.example.com/index.html')
req = Net::HTTP::Get.new(url.to_s)
res = Net::HTTP.start(url.host, url.port) {|http|
  http.request(req)
}
puts res.body