The original creator of parse-ruby-client, [aalpern](http://github.com/aalpern), has decided to stop work on the project. I'm going to give the project new life, first by maintaining the project as a gem, and second by eventually making it power [parse_resource](http://github.com/adelevie/parse_resource) under the hood.

# Ruby Client for parse.com REST API

This file implements a simple Ruby client library for using Parse's REST API.
Rather than try to implement an ActiveRecord-compatible library, it tries to
match the structure of the iOS and Android SDKs from Parse.

So far it supports simple GET, PUT, and POST operations on objects. Enough
to read & write simple data.

## Dependencies

This currently depends on the gems 'json' and 'patron' for JSON support and HTTP, respectively.

# Getting Started

## Installation

`gem "parse-ruby-client", "~> 0.0.3"`

---

To get started, load the parse.rb file and call Parse.init to initialize the client object with
your application ID and API key values, which you can obtain from the parse.com dashboard.

```ruby
require 'parse-ruby-client'

Parse.init :application_id => "<your_app_id>",
           :api_key        => "<your_api_key>"
```

If you don't like pasting this stuff in every time you fire up irb, save your api keys to `.bash_profile` or similar:

```bash
export PARSE_APPLICATION_ID="12345678"
export PARSE_REST_API_KEY="ABCDEFGH"
```

Now you can just do this:

```ruby
Parse.init
```

The test folder assumes this naming convention for environment variables, so if you want to run the tests, you *must* do this. But it's easy. And good for you, too.

## Creating and Saving Objects

Create an instance of ```Parse::Object``` with your class name supplied as a string, set some keys, and call ```save()```.

```ruby
game_score = Parse::Object.new "GameScore"
game_score["score"] 		= 1337
game_score["playerName"]	= "Sean Plott"
game_score["cheatMode"] 	= false
game_score.save
```

Alternatively, you can initialize the object's initial values with a hash.

```ruby
game_score = Parse::Object.new "GameScore", {
	"score" => 1337, "playerName" => "Sean Plott", "cheatMode" => false
}
```

Or if you prefer, you can use symbols for the hash keys - they will be converted to strings
by ```Parse::Object.initialize()```.

```ruby
game_score = Parse::Object.new "GameScore", {
		:score => 1337, :playerName => "Sean Plott", :cheatMode => false
}
```

## Retrieving Objects

Individual objects can be retrieved with a single call to ```Parse.get()``` supplying the class and object id.

```ruby
game_score = Parse.get "GameScore", "xWMyZ4YEGZ"
```

All the objects in a given class can be retrieved by omitting the object ID. Use caution if you have lots
and lots of objects of that class though.

```ruby
all_scores = Parse.get "GameScore"
```

## Queries

Queries are supported by the ```Parse::Query``` class.

```ruby
# Create some simple objects to query
(1..100).each { |i|
  score = Parse::Object.new "GameScore"
  score["score"] = i
  score.save
}

# Retrieve all scores between 10 & 20 inclusive
Parse::Query.new("GameScore")   \
  .greater_eq("score", 10)      \
  .less_eq("score", 20)         \
  .get

# Retrieve a set of specific scores
Parse::Query.new("GameScore")           \
  .value_in("score", [10, 20, 30, 40])  \
  .get

```

# TODO

- Add some form of debug logging
- ~~Support for Date, Pointer, and Bytes API [data types](https://www.parse.com/docs/rest#objects-types)~~
- Users
- ACLs
- Login


# Resources

- parse.com [REST API documentation](https://parse.com/docs/rest)
- [parse_resource](https://github.com/adelevie/parse_resource) , an ActiveRecord-compatible wrapper
  for the API for seamless integration into Rails.