This project is the implementation of a conversation between César Alvarez Doval and myself, a program which finds a path between two (apparently) unrelated artists.

== Installation

Just a simple and clean

 gem install lastfm-path-finder

== Requisites

It requires Redis. It's been developed using a Redis 2.4.6 and Ubuntu 11.10.

== Last.fm settings

You need both an API key and an API secret from Last.fm to use this gem. You can obtain them in the Last.fm API site (http://www.lastfm.es/api).

You must load this API settings in an YML file like the one in config/settings.example.yml and provide its path to the gem (see below for detailed use both as a command and as a library). By default it looks for it in config/settings.yml .

== How to use the commands?

=== Finding similar artists

Run the command:

 lastfm-path-finder similar "Pink Floyd"

To obtain the artists similar to Pink Floyd according to Last.fm

You can find those similar artists that a list of artists have in common by providing multiple artists names:

 lastfm-path-finder similar "Pink Floyd" "Beatles"

=== Finding a path

Run the command:

 lastfm-path-finder "Pink Floyd" "Beatles"

And you will find the path of similar artists that comes from Pink Floyd to Beatles

=== Lastfm Settings

In order to provide the settings path just add the --settings option to the command you are running

 lastfm-path-finder similar "Pink Floyd" --settings path/to/settings.file.yml

== How to use the gem

=== Finding similar artists

 LastfmPathFinder::Artist.new(:name => "Pink Floyd").related_artists

You obtain a Redis SortedSet

=== Finding a path

 from = LastfmPathFinder::Artist.new(:name => "Pink Floyd")
 to = LastfmPathFinder::Artist.new(:name => "Franz Ferdinand")
 path = LastfmPathFinder::Finder.find from, to

You obtain a LastfmPathFinder::Path object.

=== Lastfm Settings

In order to provide the settings path just execute the source method on Settings class before you try to obtain any data from Lastfm.

 LastfmPathFinder::Settings.source "path/to/settings.file.yml"

== Contributions

Gemfile includes all the requried gemos to develope this gem. Fork and pull request any feature you think could be interesting :)