Thanos

On 31 January 2014 Marvel Comics put out a press release announcing an API connecting to Marvel's database of comics, characters, and creators.

Thanos provides a very simple wrapper for the Marvel API and attempts to make that API easily queryable by providing qualifier objects that allow a consumer of the API to drill down into specific details.

Thanos is a Marvel super-villain and plays a large role in the current Marvel cinematic universe. Thanos has routinely teamed up with Death in order to achieve universe-wide domination. As accomplishments go, that's moderately impressive, to say the least.

To get the latest stable release, add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'thanos'

To get the latest code:

gem 'thanos', git: https://github.com/jnyman/thanos

After doing one of the above, execute the following command:

$ bundle

You can, of course, just install the gem directly like this:

$ gem install thanos

You need API credentials, which is a public and private key pair. You can get yours at the Marvel Developer Portal. These are required to configure and instantiate a Thanos client.

require 'thanos'

Thanos.authenticate do |key|
  key.public_api_key = 'your public key'
  key.private_api_key = 'your private key'
end

client = Thanos::Client.new

Make sure you put in your own public and private keys that you were assigned. The client variable will now hold a Thanos::Client instance that you can call endpoint methods on.

Thanos is a wrapper around the API resources and is designed to provide a simple interface that allows you to communicate with the API without having to know the structure of the information returned by the API.

Here is a full example of getting information about a character, assuming you have a client instance as shown above:

hulk = client.characters.find_by_name 'Hulk'

puts hulk.id
puts hulk.name
puts hulk.description
puts hulk.resource_uri
puts hulk.thumbnail.path
puts hulk.thumbnail.extension
puts hulk.thumbnail.full_path

puts hulk.urls.first.url
puts hulk.urls.first.type

hulk.urls.each do |link|
  puts "Url: #{link.url}"
end

hulk.comics.each do |comic|
  puts "Comic: #{comic.name}"
end

hulk.stories.each do |story|
  puts "Story: #{story.name}"
end

hulk.events.each do |event|
  puts "Event: #{event.name}"
end

hulk.series.each do |series|
  puts "Series: #{series.name}"
end

This shows you that you can call various attributes of the resource -- in this case a character -- and display information about the resource (such as name and description) as well as information related to the resource, such as a list of events or series that the character was involved in.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/jnyman/thanos. While Thanos wants to create a universe of death, despair and destruction, this project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration. As such, contributors are very much welcome but are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

To contribute to Thanos:

1. Fork the project.
2. Create a feature branch. (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes. (git commit -am 'new feature')
4. Push the branch. (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create a new pull request.

• Jeff Nyman

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.