The ruby sample below provides a simple client library to consume the daylife APIs. This code was graciously contributed to daylife by the enthusiastic ruby developer - Conor Hunt

This code demonstrates integration with a single API call - search_getRelatedArticles.

The code below provides hooks to receive xml encoded response objects from the daylife API.

#sample api call using the ruby client library classes below
require 'daylife'
a = Daylife::API.new('your api key','sharedsecret')
r = a.execute('search','getRelatedArticles', :query => 'sam adams', :limit => 5)
if(r.success?)
 r.articles.each {|a| puts a.headline }
 puts r.articles[1].source.daylife_url
else
	# output the error message
	puts "Error: #{r.code}: #{r.message}"
end

##
# Ruby classes to help consume the daylife API
#
# Author: Conor Hunt - conor.hunt AT gmail DOT com - 5/29/2007
#
# To get an API key and to learn more about the daylife API go to http://developer.daylife.com
#
# Example Usage:
#
# require 'daylife'
# a = Daylife::API.new('your api key','sharedsecret')
# r = a.execute('search','getRelatedArticles', :query => 'sam adams', :limit => 5)
# r.articles.each {|a| puts a.headline }
# puts r.articles[1].source.daylife_url
#

require 'rexml/document'
require 'net/http'
require 'md5'
require 'cgi'

module Daylife
	class API
		DEFAULT_PROTOCOL = 'xmlrest'
		DEFAULT_VERSION = '4.8'
		DEFAULT_SERVER = 'freeapi.daylife.com'
		
		CORE_IDENTIFIER_MAP = {'search' => :query, 'topic' => :name, 'article' => :article_id, 'quote' => :quote_id, 'image' => :image_id}
		
		def initialize(access_key, shared_secret, options = {})
			@protocol = options[:protocol] || DEFAULT_PROTOCOL
			@version = options[:version] || DEFAULT_VERSION
			@server = options[:server] || DEFAULT_SERVER
			
			@access_key = access_key
			@shared_secret = shared_secret
		end
		
		def execute(service_name, method_name, parameters = {})
			# Create the signature
			core_identifier = parameters[:core_identfier] || parameters[CORE_IDENTIFIER_MAP[service_name]]
			parameters[:signature] = Digest::MD5.hexdigest(@access_key + @shared_secret + core_identifier) unless parameters[:signature]
			
			# Convert Time objects to strings with correct format
			parameters[:start_time] = parameters[:start_time].strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S") if(parameters[:start_time] and parameters[:start_time].kind_of? Time)
			parameters[:end_time] = parameters[:end_time].strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S") if(parameters[:end_time] and parameters[:end_time].kind_of? Time)
		
			# Build the URL  
			parameters[:accesskey] = @access_key      
			url = "http://#{@server}/#{@protocol}/publicapi/#{@version}/#{service_name}_#{method_name}"
			param_string = parameters.collect {|k,v| "#{k}=#{CGI.escape(v.to_s)}"}.join("&")
			url += "?" + param_string if parameters.length > 0
			
			http_response = Net::HTTP.get_response(URI.parse(url))
			
			# TODO: Check for 404 etc.
			
			Daylife::Response.new(http_response.body)
		end
	end

	class Response
		attr_accessor :document
		attr_accessor :root

		def initialize(response)
			@document = REXML::Document.new(response)
			@nodes = Daylife::Node.new(@document.elements['response/payload'])
		end

		def code
			@document.elements["response/code"].text.to_i
		end

		def message
			@document.elements["response/message"].text  
		end

		def success?
			self.code == 2001
		end
		
		# Pass through missing methods to the daylife node for easy access to the api responses
		def method_missing(name, *args)
			@nodes.send(name, args)
		end
	end

	# This class represents a level in the Daylife response XML, used for easy access to the API results
	class Node
		include Enumerable
	
		def initialize(node)
			@document = node
		end
	
		def each
			@document.each {|e| yield Daylife::Node.new(e) }
		end
	
		def [](index)
			return Daylife::Node.new(@document[index])
		end
	
		def size
			return @document.size
		end
	
		def method_missing(name, *args)
			return nil if @document.kind_of? Array
		
			name = name.to_s
		
			if name.reverse[0..0] == 's'
				# If there is an 's' then assume this is an array of elements we are trying to access
				elem = Array.new
				@document.elements.each("#{name[0..name.length-2]}") {|e| elem << e}
				return Daylife::Node.new(elem)
			else
				elem = @document.elements[name]
				if(elem.size > 1)
					# If the element has > 1 child elements then we assume it has no content
					return Daylife::Node.new(elem)
				else
					value = elem.text
					value = value.to_i if(type = elem.attributes["type"] and (type == 'int4' or type == 'int8'))
					value = Time.parse(value) if(name == 'timestamp')
					return value
				end
			end
		end
	end
end