Getting Started with Medium API

Introduction

Medium API helps you to quickly extract data from Medium's Website (https://medium.com).

You can gather data related to users, publications, articles (including its textual content), latest posts & top writers within a topic/niche, etc…

Read more on Medium: https://github.com/Medium/medium-api-docs

Building

The generated code depends on a few Ruby gems. The references to these gems are added in the gemspec file. The easiest way to resolve the dependencies, build the gem and install it is through Rake:

1. Install Rake if not already installed: gem install rake
2. Install Bundler if not already installed: gem install bundler
3. From terminal/cmd navigate to the root directory of the SDK.
4. Invoke: rake install

Alternatively, you can build and install the gem manually:

1. From terminal/cmd navigate to the root directory of the SDK.
2. Run the build command: gem build medium_api.gemspec
3. Run the install command: gem install medium_api-1.0.0.gem

Installation

The following section explains how to use the medium_api ruby gem in a new Rails project using RubyMine™. The basic workflow presented here is also applicable if you prefer using a different editor or IDE.

1. Starting a new project

Close any existing projects in RubyMine™ by selecting File -> Close Project. Next, click on Create New Project to create a new project from scratch.

Next, provide TestApp as the project name, choose Rails Application as the project type, and click OK.

In the next dialog make sure that the correct Ruby SDK is being used (>= 2.6 and <= 3.2) and click OK.

2. Add reference of the gem

In order to use the medium_api gem in the new project we must add a gem reference. Locate the Gemfile in the Project Explorer window under the TestApp project node. The file contains references to all gems being used in the project. Here, add the reference to the library gem by adding the following line: gem 'medium_api', '1.0.0'

3. Adding a new Rails Controller

Once the TestApp project is created, a folder named controllers will be visible in the Project Explorer under the following path: TestApp > app > controllers. Right click on this folder and select New -> Run Rails Generator....

Selecting the said option will popup a small window where the generator names are displayed. Here, select the controller template.

Next, a popup window will ask you for a Controller name and included Actions. For controller name provide Hello and include an action named Index and click OK.

A new controller class named HelloController will be created in a file named hello_controller.rb containing a method named Index.

1. Add the require 'medium_api' statement to require the gem in the controller file.
2. Add the include MediumApi statement to include the sdk module in the controller file.
3. In the Index method, add code for initialization and a sample for its usage.

IRB Console Usage

You can explore the SDK interactively using IRB in two ways

1. Use IRB with Installed Gem

Open your system terminal (Command Prompt, Git Bash or macOS Terminal) and type the following command to start the irb console.

irb

Now you can load the SDK in the IRB

require 'medium_api'
include MediumApi

2. Use IRB within SDK

Open your system terminal (Command Prompt, Git Bash or macOS Terminal) and navigate to the root folder of SDK.

cd path/to/medium_api

Now you can start the preconfigured irb console by running the following command

ruby bin/console

Note: This automatically loads the SDK from lib/

Test the SDK

To run the tests, navigate to the root directory of the SDK in your terminal and execute the following command:

rake

Initialize the API Client

Note: Documentation for the client can be found here.

The following parameters are configurable for the API Client:

Parameter	Type	Description
connection	Faraday::Connection	The Faraday connection object passed by the SDK user for making requests
adapter	Faraday::Adapter	The Faraday adapter object passed by the SDK user for performing http requests
timeout	Float	The value to use for connection timeout. Default: 60
max_retries	Integer	The number of times to retry an endpoint call if it fails. Default: 0
retry_interval	Float	Pause in seconds between retries. Default: 1
backoff_factor	Float	The amount to multiply each successive retry's interval amount by in order to provide backoff. Default: 2
retry_statuses	Array	A list of HTTP statuses to retry. Default: [408, 413, 429, 500, 502, 503, 504, 521, 522, 524, 408, 413, 429, 500, 502, 503, 504, 521, 522, 524]
retry_methods	Array	A list of HTTP methods to retry. Default: %i[get put get put]
http_callback	HttpCallBack	The Http CallBack allows defining callables for pre and post API calls.
proxy_settings	ProxySettings	Optional proxy configuration to route HTTP requests through a proxy server.
api_host_credentials	ApiHostCredentials	The credential object for Custom Header Signature
api_key_credentials	ApiKeyCredentials	The credential object for Custom Header Signature

The API client can be initialized as follows:

Code-Based Client Initialization

require 'medium_api'
include MediumApi

client = Client.new(
  api_host_credentials: ApiHostCredentials.new(
    x_rapidapi_host: 'x-rapidapi-host'
  ),
  api_key_credentials: ApiKeyCredentials.new(
    x_rapidapi_key: 'x-rapidapi-key'
  )
)

Environment-Based Client Initialization

require 'medium_api'
include MediumApi

# Create client from environment
client = Client.from_env

See the Environment-Based Client Initialization section for details.

Authorization

This API uses the following authentication schemes.

• ApiHost (Custom Header Signature)
• ApiKey (Custom Header Signature)

List of APIs

• Welcome
• User
• Publication
• Article
• Misc
• List
• Search

SDK Infrastructure

Configuration

• ProxySettings
• Environment-Based Client Initialization

HTTP

• HttpResponse
• HttpRequest

Utilities

• ApiHelper
• DateTimeHelper