pareidolia makes aws-sdk seem more consistent than actually it is.

aws-sdk is an excellent gem, but there are a lot of places where the inconsistencies of the API show through. pareidolia is a thin layer on top of this, providing the missing consistency.

gem install pareidolia

Rate Limit errors are handled by retrying after a randomized delay of between 1.0 and 4.0 seconds.

Responses are cached by default, using simple memoization. Every method includes a ! variant that ignores the cache (and updates it with the response).

Most AWS calls return an envelope of sorts. More confusingly, the envelope is not consistently shaped.

• describe_vpcs returns a Struct with a vpcs field.
• describe_instances returns a Struct with a reservations field, that in turn contains an Array of Structs with an instances field.
• describe_moving_addresses returns a Struct with a moving_address_statuses field.
• describe_volume_status returns a Struct with a volume_statuses field.
• and so on.

pareidolia returns the contents of the envelope, instead.

• vpcs returns an Array of VPC.
• instances returns an Array of Instance.
• moving_address_statuses returns an Array of MovingAddressStatus.
• volume_statuses returns an Array of VolumeStatus.

• reservations returns an Array of Reservation.
• moving_address_statuses is an alias for moving_addresses
• instance_statuses is an alias for instance_status

pareidolia is available under the MIT License. See LICENSE.txt for the full text.

• Chris Olstrom | e-mail | Twitter