Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'usda_fdc'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install usda_fdc

fdc = UsdaFdc::Client.new('API_KEY')

The fdc API object can be called with a simple search string alone, with an additional options hash, or with an options hash alone (see Note). The keys being the request parameters from the API.

If the 'generalSearchInput' key:value is set in the options hash, it will take precedence over a supplied search term.

fdc.search(supplied_search_string, options => {"generalSearchInput": what_will_actually_be_searched})

food_search_result = fdc.search("Cheddar Cheese")

food_search_result is a hash of FDC API Response Fields with ['foods'] being an array of foods with select response fields.

You can then get all info regarding a specific food by calling the details method on the API object, with an 'fdcId' from a food.

food_details = fdc.details(food_search_result['foods'][0]['fdcId'])

food_details is a hash with keys being API Food Response Fields

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/alexDude/usda_fdc-ruby.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.