It looks like a JSON string. You can use one of many JSON libraries and it's as simple as doing:
JSON.parse(string)
As of Ruby v1.9.3 you don't need to install any Gems in order to parse JSON, simply use require 'json':
require 'json'
json = JSON.parse '{"foo":"bar", "ping":"pong"}'
puts json['foo'] # prints "bar"
See JSON at Ruby-Doc.
This is a bit late but I ran into something interesting that seems important to contribute.
I accidentally wrote this code, and it seems to work:
require 'yaml'
CONFIG_FILE = ENV['CONFIG_FILE'] # path to a JSON config file
configs = YAML.load_file("#{CONFIG_FILE}")
puts configs['desc']['someKey']
I was surprised to see it works since I am using the YAML library, but it works.
The reason why it is important is that yaml comes built-in with Ruby so there's no gem install.
I am using versions 1.8.x and 1.9.x - so the json library is not built in, but it is in version 2.x.
So technically - this is the easiest way to extract the data in version lower than 2.0.
That data looks like it is in JSON format.
You can use this JSON implementation for Ruby to extract it.
Don't see any answers here that mention parsing directly to an object other than a Hash, but it is possible using the poorly-documented object_class option(see https://ruby-doc.org/stdlib-2.7.1/libdoc/json/rdoc/JSON.html):
JSON.parse('{"foo":{"bar": 2}}', object_class: OpenStruct).foo.bar
=> 2
The better way to read that option is "The ruby class that a json object turns into", which explains why it defaults to Hash. Likewise, there is an array_class option for json arrays.
Just to extend the answers a bit with what to do with the parsed object:
# JSON Parsing example
require "rubygems" # don't need this if you're Ruby v1.9.3 or higher
require "json"
string = '{"desc":{"someKey":"someValue","anotherKey":"value"},"main_item":{"stats":{"a":8,"b":12,"c":10}}}'
parsed = JSON.parse(string) # returns a hash
p parsed["desc"]["someKey"]
p parsed["main_item"]["stats"]["a"]
# Read JSON from a file, iterate over objects
file = open("shops.json")
json = file.read
parsed = JSON.parse(json)
parsed["shop"].each do |shop|
p shop["id"]
end
I suggest Oj as it is waaaaaay faster than the standard JSON library.
Source: Stackoverflow.com