# pollster

Pollster - the Ruby gem for the Pollster API

Download election-related polling data from Pollster.

[HuffPost Pollster](https://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster) is a website that tracks public opinion. Pollster's editors enter polling data for the \"Questions\" they care about -- questions the public answers in \"Polls\".

The Pollster website is organized into \"Charts\" and Pollster-calculated trendlines (descriptions of how the public felt each day, based on the polls and public algorithms). Each Chart is based on a single Question.  The Pollster API provides every point plotted on all the \"Charts\" on the Pollster website. Furthermore, it provides the raw polling data that went into those charts: every response to every Question, at whichever level of detail the developer requests.

This SDK was originally generated by the [Swagger Codegen](https://github.com/swagger-api/swagger-codegen) project:

- API version: 2.0.0
- Package version: 2.0.0
- Build package: class io.swagger.codegen.languages.RubyClientCodegen

For more information, please visit [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/pollster-users](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/pollster-users)

## Installation

In short: add `gem 'pollster', '~> 2.0.0'` to your Gemfile.

Full installation options:

### Build a gem

To build the Ruby code into a gem:

```shell
gem build pollster.gemspec
```

Then either install the gem locally:

```shell
gem install ./pollster-2.0.0.gem
```
(for development, run `gem install --dev ./pollster-1.0.0.gem` to install the development dependencies)

or publish the gem to a gem hosting service, e.g. [RubyGems](https://rubygems.org/).

Finally add this to the Gemfile:

    gem 'pollster', '~> 2.0.0'

### Install from Git

If the Ruby gem is hosted at a git repository: https://github.com/YOUR_GIT_USERNAME/YOUR_GIT_REPO, then add the following in the Gemfile:

    gem 'pollster', :git => 'https://github.com/YOUR_GIT_USERNAME/YOUR_GIT_REPO.git'

### Include the Ruby code directly

Include the Ruby code directly using `-I` as follows:

```shell
ruby -Ilib script.rb
```

## Getting Started

Please follow the [installation](#installation) procedure and then run the following code:
```ruby
# Load the gem
require 'pollster'

api = Pollster::Api.new

opts = { 
  cursor: nil,                            # Special string to index into the Array
  tags: "2016-president",                 # Comma-separated list of tag slugs
  election_date: Date.parse("2013-10-20") # Date of an election
}

begin
  result = api.charts_get(opts)
  p result
rescue Pollster::ApiError => e
  puts "Exception when calling Api->charts_get: #{e}"
end

```

## API documentation

Perhaps the best documentation is `example.rb`: it shows how to use all API
endpoints and how to paginate.

See https://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/api/v2/help for more details.

See https://app.swaggerhub.com/api/huffpostdata/pollster-api/2.0.0 for full API
documentation. The Ruby-specific warts:

* For the TSV endpoints `questions/{slug}/poll-responses-clean.tsv` and
  `charts/{slug}/pollster-chart-poll-questions.tsv`, the return values include a
  `responses` Hash that maps from `label` (String) to `value` (Float).
* Ruby API method names are snake-cased versions of the API endpoints and end
  with `_get`. For example, the Ruby method to access
  `questions/{slug}/poll-responses-clean.tsv` is
  `api.questions_slug_poll_responses_clean_tsv_get(slug)`.

## Author

Adam Hooper, adam.hooper@huffingtonpost.com.

## Copyright

Copyright © 2016 The Huffington Post. See LICENSE for details.