Extracting value from complex hash in Ruby - ruby

Question

I am using an API (zillow) which returns a complex hash. A sample result is
{"xmlns:xsi"=>"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance",
"xsi:schemaLocation"=>"http://www.zillow.com/static/xsd/SearchResults.xsd http://www.zillowstatic.com/vstatic/5985ee4/static/xsd/SearchResults.xsd",
"xmlns:SearchResults"=>"http://www.zillow.com/static/xsd/SearchResults.xsd", "request"=>[{"address"=>["305 Vinton St"], "citystatezip"=>["Melrose, MA 02176"]}],
"message"=>[{"text"=>["Request successfully processed"], "code"=>["0"]}],
"response"=>[{"results"=>[{"result"=>[{"zpid"=>["56291382"], "links"=>[{"homedetails"=>["http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/305-Vinton-St-Melrose-MA-02176/56291382_zpid/"],
"graphsanddata"=>["http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/305-Vinton-St-Melrose-MA-02176/56291382_zpid/#charts-and-data"], "mapthishome"=>["http://www.zillow.com/homes/56291382_zpid/"],
"comparables"=>["http://www.zillow.com/homes/comps/56291382_zpid/"]}], "address"=>[{"street"=>["305 Vinton St"], "zipcode"=>["02176"], "city"=>["Melrose"], "state"=>["MA"], "latitude"=>["42.466805"],
"longitude"=>["-71.072515"]}], "zestimate"=>[{"amount"=>[{"currency"=>"USD", "content"=>"562170"}], "last-updated"=>["06/01/2014"], "oneWeekChange"=>[{"deprecated"=>"true"}], "valueChange"=>[{"duration"=>"30", "currency"=>"USD", "content"=>"42749"}], "valuationRange"=>[{"low"=>[{"currency"=>"USD",
"content"=>"534062"}], "high"=>[{"currency"=>"USD", "content"=>"590278"}]}], "percentile"=>["0"]}], "localRealEstate"=>[{"region"=>[{"id"=>"23017", "type"=>"city",
"name"=>"Melrose", "links"=>[{"overview"=>["http://www.zillow.com/local-info/MA-Melrose/r_23017/"], "forSaleByOwner"=>["http://www.zillow.com/melrose-ma/fsbo/"],
"forSale"=>["http://www.zillow.com/melrose-ma/"]}]}]}]}]}]}]}
I can extract a specific value using the following:
result = result.to_hash
p result["response"][0]["results"][0]["result"][0]["zestimate"][0]["amount"][0]["content"]
It seems odd to have to specify the index of each element in this fashion. Is there a simpler way to obtain a named value?

Answer 1

It looks like this should be parsed into XML. According to the Zillow API Docs, it returns XML by default. Apparently, "to_hash" was able to turn this into a hash (albeit, a very ugly one), but you are really trying to swim upstream by using it this way. I would recommend using it as intended (xml) at the start, and then maybe parsing it into an easier to use format (like a JSON/Hash structure) later.
Nokogiri is GREAT at parsing XML! You can use the xpath syntax for grabbing elements from the dom, or even css selectors.
For example, to get an array of the "content" in every result:
response = #get xml response from zillow
results = Nokogiri::XML(response).remove_namespaces!
#using css
content_array = results.css("result content")
#same thing using xpath:
content_array = results.xpath("//result//content")
If you just want the content from the first result, you can do this as a shortcut:
content = results.at_css("result content").content

Answer 2

Since it is indeed XML dumped into a JSON, you could use JSONPath to query the JSON