Read JSON file in git repo without checkout

Question

I have the following method:

def getEndpointContent(url)
        return JSON.parse(open(url).read)
end

I want to use this to return the contents of a json file located in a git repo without checking out the repository.

However, if I pass in, for example, https://github.com/MyRep/myFile.json for the url parameter, I get the following error:

`connect': SSL_connect returned=1 errno=0 state=SSLv3 read server certificate B: certificate verify failed (OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError)

Is what I'm trying to do possible, and if so, how?

Answer 1

You won't be able to access the file using that URL.

GitHub provides raw file access using a different domain, and you haven't included your user or organization name. Also remember that a Git repository isn't simply a directory; you'll also have to provide a branch name or commit hash or something similar to tell GitHub which version of the file you want to see.

Something like this should work:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MyUser/MyRepo/master/myFile.json

You can find the raw link for a file by browsing to it in the GitHub UI and clicking the "Raw" link in the file's header.

Answer 2

Ruby doesn't trust the Github SSL certificate probably because it's too new for your version of Ruby and/or your OS.

Try the following from the command-line (assuming linux/OSX):

wget http://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert.pem

Now in your Ruby code:

ENV['SSL_CERT_FILE'] = "/path/to/your/download/cacert.pem" # where you downloaded file to
require 'open-uri'  # ensure this is after the above line.

def getEndpointContent(url)
    return JSON.parse(open(url).read)
end