How to parse a json response in rails

Question

First time working with JSON in Rails and trying to figure out something which seems like it should be quite basic. I'm working w/ the Stripe Rails Library and trying to parse out and set one of the JSON elements to a variable.

Here is my actual attempt:

    coupon = Stripe::Coupon.retrieve(self.discount_code)
    parsed_json = ActiveSupport::JSON.decode(coupon)
    discount_amount = parsed_json["percent_off"]

This line works:

coupon = Stripe::Coupon.retrieve("save50percent")

Running "puts coupon" in the console shows the JSON string

JSON: {"id":"test50","duration":"once","duration_in_months":null,"livemode":false,"max_redemptions":null,"object":"coupon","percent_off":50,"redeem_by":null,"times_redeemed":0}

but trying to run:

parsed_json = ActiveSupport::JSON.decode(coupon)

results in the following error:

TypeError: can't convert Stripe::Coupon into String

I haven't even gotten to trying to parse out the value from the JSON - which i'm sure i've approached incorrectly.

Thanks

Answer 1

Your error message says it all: coupon is a Stripe::Coupon , not a String . Try using the available to_json method

Answer 2

I would assume the coupon is not a string that looks like JSON, but looks like one when you print it. Try decoding it's string representation rather. I'm not sure of the code for this(I'm not a RoR programmer) but I've seen many similar situations to the one you're in...