Netflix API for Ruby

Copyright © 2012 Dean Holdren

To install: gem install netflix

This gem uses Netflix’s OAuth REST API, you first need to register an application with Netflix at developer.netflix.com/apps/register/

This will provide you with a “consumer key”, “consumer secret”, and “application name”

To use unauthenticated features (catalog search):

  • TODO

To use authenticated features (i.e. queue management):

  • Set the consumer/developer config:

    Netflix.consumer_key = <your consumer/developer key>
    Netflix.consumer_secret = <your consumer/developer secret>
    
  • Do OAuth dance: (This is a one-time per user step, save the result somewhere.)

    1. Interactive (commandline/irb): This will open a netflix.com web page to ask the user to authenticate, and provide a pin.

      access_token = Netflix::Client.new.oauth
      
    2. or Web application (Rails/Sinatra/etc), define a URL that can handle the callback

      request_token, auth_url = Netflix::Client.new.oauth_via_callback(my_callback_url)
      session[:request_token] = request_token
      redirect_to auth_url
      

      Then in the handler for “my_callback_url” (i.e. a Rails controller action) retrieve the :oauth_verifier out of the request params

      oauth_verifier = params[:oauth_verifier]
      request_token = session[:request_token]
      access_token = Netflix::Client.new.handle_oauth_callback(request_token, oauth_verifier)
      
  • After OAuth credentials are established:

    access_token = access_token.token
    access_secret = access_token.secret
    user_id = access_token.params["user_id"]
    

    (Record these, for example in a User table in a database)

    client = Netflix::Client.new(access_token, access_token_secret)
    user = client.user(user_id)
    queue = user.available_disc_queue
    discs = queue.discs
    disc_one = discs[0]
    puts "#{disc_one.title} #{disc_one.id}"
    queue.remove(1) #queue is 1-based, so this is first disc
    

Credits

This work is based on: REST API documentation of Netflix (developer.netflix.com), with some help from twitter gem for OAuth ideas github.com/jnunemaker/twitter/