ruby on rails - EOFError: end of file reached issue with Net::HTTP

Question

I am using ruby-1.8.7-p302/Rails 2.3.11. I am trying to use FQL (Facebook API) to get stats for a link. Here's my code:

def stats(fb_post_url)
  url = BASE_URI + "?query=#{URI.encode("select like_count from link_stat where url="#{fb_post_url}"")}"
  parsed_url = URI.parse(url)
  http = Net::HTTP.new(parsed_url.host, parsed_url.port)
  request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(parsed_url.request_uri)

  response = http.request(request)
  response.inspect
end

And here's the error:

EOFError: end of file reached
from /home/rahul/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p302/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:135:in `sysread'
from /home/rahul/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p302/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:135:in `rbuf_fill'
from /home/rahul/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p302/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:67:in `timeout'
from /home/rahul/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p302/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:101:in `timeout'
from /home/rahul/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p302/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:134:in `rbuf_fill'
from /home/rahul/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p302/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:116:in `readuntil'
from /home/rahul/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p302/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:126:in `readline'
from /home/rahul/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p302/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:2028:in `read_status_line'
from /home/rahul/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p302/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:2017:in `read_new'
from /home/rahul/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p302/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1051:in `request'
from /home/rahul/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p302/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1037:in `request'
from /home/rahul/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p302/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:543:in `start'
from /home/rahul/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p302/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1035:in `request'
from /home/rahul/Work/Radr/lib/fb_stats.rb:13:in `stats'
from (irb):10

This seems to be happening only in case of the Facebook API. Also, I saw it suggested in some post this could be a bug in Net::HTTP.

Answer 1

If the URL is using https instead of http, you need to add the following line:

parsed_url = URI.parse(url)
http = Net::HTTP.new(parsed_url.host, parsed_url.port)
http.use_ssl = true

Note the additional http.use_ssl = true.

And the more appropriate code which would handle both http and https will be similar to the following one.

url = URI.parse(domain)
req = Net::HTTP::Post.new(url.request_uri)
req.set_form_data({'name'=>'Sur Max', 'email'=>'some@email.com'})
http = Net::HTTP.new(url.host, url.port)
http.use_ssl = (url.scheme == "https")
response = http.request(req)

See more in my blog: EOFError: end of file reached issue when post a form with Net::HTTP.