0.1 release of Wolfram|Alpha Client for ruby
This is extreme alpha code!
gem is coming soon, as are features and tests
resources
Github for code: github.com/ianwhite/wac
API docs: ianwhite.github.com/wac/doc
get going
make sure nokogiri and active_support are installed as gems
$ git clone git://github.com/ianwhite/wac.git
$ cd wac
$ irb
> require 'rubygems' # or similar, to load up the deps
> require 'lib/wac'
> Wac.appid = "YOURAPIKEY"
# grab a query result straight away
> r = Wac.fetch 'pi'
=> a: MathematicalFunctionIdentity (assumptions: Clash)
- Input: pi
- Decimal approximation: 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749... [More digits...]
- Property: pi is a transcendental number
- Continued fraction: [3; 7, 15, 1, 292, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 14, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 84, 2, 1, 1, 15, ...] [Fraction form...], [More terms...]
- Alternative representations: pi = 180 deg [More...]
- Series representations: pi = 4 sum_(k=0)^infinity(-1)^k/(2 k+1) [More...]
- Integral representations: pi = 2 integral_0^infinity1/(t^2+1) dt [More...]
# requery using an assumption
> r.assumptions
=> [#<Clash: a mathematical constant, a character, a movie, a word>]
> r.assumptions[0][1].requery
=> q: "pi" (assuming a character)
> r.assumptions[0][1].requery.fetch
=> a: Character (assumptions: Clash)
- Input interpretation: pi (character)
- Visual form:
- Name: Greek small letter pi
- Position in the Greek alphabet: 16th letter (10th letter from the end)
- Encodings: Unicode | U+03C0 (decimal: 960)
HTML | π
Mathematica | \[Pi] [More...]
- Standards blocks: Unicode | Greek and Coptic (880 through 1023) (144 characters)
ISO 8859 | ISO 8859-7 (Greek) (character 240)
# requery using a pod state
> r[1]
=> #<Numeric: Decimal approximation: 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749... [More digits...]>
> r[1].states[0].requery.fetch[1]
=> #<Recognize: Decimal approximation: 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282... [Fewer digits...], [More digits...]>
Types
mixins are found/created that match the WA api results, and applied to the results. This means you can add your own app-specific behaviour by opening the mixins you are interested in.
For the ‘pi’ example above the following modules are mixed in:
# the result is Wac::Result::MathematicalFunctionIdentity
> r.is_a? Wac::Result::MathematicalFunctionIdentity
=> true
# the pods are given mixins for their scanner attributes
> r[0].is_a? Wac::Result::Identity
=> true
> r[1].is_a? Wac::Result::Numeric
=> true
# the assumptions are given Assumption mixins
> r.assumptions[0].is_a? Wac::Assumption::Clash
=> true
# add your own behaviour for numerics
module Wac::Result::Numeric
def to_f
plaintext.to_f
end
end
# now all Numeric results can be cast to floats
Want Images?
Most pods have an image associated with them, here’s an example of how to access them:
> r = Wac.fetch "Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Woody Guthrie, Kylie Minogue"
=> a: City,People
- Input interpretation: Bob Dylan (musician) | Neil Young (musician) | Woody Guthrie (musician) | Kylie Minogue (singer/songwriter)
- Basic information: | full name | date of birth | place of birth
Bob Dylan | Robert Allen Zimmerman | 1941 (age: 68 years) | Duluth,Minnesota
Neil Young | Neil Percival Young | 1945 (age: 63 years) | Toronto,Ontario
Woody Guthrie | Woodrow Wilson Guthrie | 1912 (97 years ago) | Okemah,Oklahoma
Kylie Minogue | Kylie Ann Minogue | 1968 (age: 41 years) | Melbourne,Victoria
| date of death | place of death
Woody Guthrie | 1967 (age: 55 years)
(42 years ago) | New York [Show full dates...]
- Timeline:
# collate all the images of these in a html string
> r.map {|p| p.img}.join
=> "<img src=\"http://www1.wolframalpha.com/Calculate/MSP/MSP75197hc39c9cc059e800006b0403d7gehhf9f4?MSPStoreType=image/gif&s=31\" alt=\"Bob Dylan (musician) | Neil Young (musician) | Woody Guthrie (musician) | Kylie Minogue (singer/songwriter)\" title=\"Bob Dylan (musician) | Neil Young (musician) | Woody Guthrie (musician) | Kylie Minogue (singer/songwriter)\" width=\"437\" height=\"41\"/><img src=\"http://www1.wolframalpha.com/Calculate/MSP/MSP76197hc39c9cc059e8000055d4671i712ab0g0?MSPStoreType=image/gif&s=31\" alt=\" | full name | date of birth | place of birth Bob Dylan | Robert Allen Zimmerman | 1941 (age: 68 years) | Duluth,Minnesota Neil Young | Neil Percival Young | 1945 (age: 63 years) | Toronto,Ontario Woody Guthrie | Woodrow Wilson Guthrie | 1912 (97 years ago) | Okemah,Oklahoma Kylie Minogue | Kylie Ann Minogue | 1968 (age: 41 years) | Melbourne,Victoria | date of death | place of death Woody Guthrie | 1967 (age: 55 years) (42 years ago) | New York\" title=\" | full name | date of birth | place of birth Bob Dylan | Robert Allen Zimmerman | 1941 (age: 68 years) | Duluth,Minnesota Neil Young | Neil Percival Young | 1945 (age: 63 years) | Toronto,Ontario Woody Guthrie | Woodrow Wilson Guthrie | 1912 (97 years ago) | Okemah,Oklahoma Kylie Minogue | Kylie Ann Minogue | 1968 (age: 41 years) | Melbourne,Victoria | date of death | place of death Woody Guthrie | 1967 (age: 55 years) (42 years ago) | New York\" width=\"495\" height=\"355\"/><img src=\"http://www1.wolframalpha.com/Calculate/MSP/MSP77197hc39c9cc059e800005dhd19ib9b5g5igf?MSPStoreType=image/gif&s=31\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"108\"/>"
# launch these images in browser windows
> require 'launchy'
> r.each {|p| Launchy.open(p.img['src'])}
Want HTML?
You can ask for formats in html, etc by adding options to the query or session (the session is just an options container that can issue queries).
> s = Wac.new 'MYAPPID', :format => 'html'
> s.fetch('pi')[1].markup
=> "<div id=\"pod_0200\" class=\"pod \"><hr class=\"top\" /><h1><span>Decimal approximation:</span><ul><li class=\"first\">..."
Other options
All of the official Wolfram Alpha API options are supported, on both sessions and queries. In addition, you can change the query_uri to point somewhere else.
> s = Wac.new 'MYAPPID', :location => "Sheffield, UK"
> q = s.query "Distance to the Moon"
> q.uri
=> "http://api.wolframalpha.com/v1/query?appid=beta824g5&input=Distance+to+the+moon&location=Sheffield%2C+UK"
> s.query_uri = "http://preview.wolframalpha.com/api/v1/query.jsp"
> q = s.query "Distance to the Moon"
> q.uri
=> "http://preview.wolframalpha.com/api/v1/query.jsp?appid=beta824g5&input=Distance+to+the+Moon&location=Sheffield%2C+UK"
> q.fetch
=> a: Astronomical,City
- Input interpretation: Moon | distance from Earth
- Current result: 230407 miles
- Unit conversions: 370803 km (kilometers)
- Comparison as distance: ~~ 0.96 x mean Moon-Earth distance ( 3.844x10^8 m )
- Corresponding quantity: Light travel time t in vacuum from t=x/c:
| 1.2 seconds
- Orbital properties: current distance from Earth | 230407 mi
1.237 light seconds
average distance from Earth | 239200 mi
1.284 light seconds
largest distance from orbit center | 252100 mi
63.61 R_(+)
nearest distance from orbit center | 225600 mi
56.93 R_(+)
orbital period | 27.322 days [Show metric...], [More...]
> q = s.query "distance to Manchester"
=> a: City,Internet (assumptions: SubCategory)
- Input interpretation: distance | from Sheffield to Manchester
- Result: 31 miles
- Unit conversions: 49.89 km (kilometers)
- Direct travel times: aircraft (550 mph) | 3 minutes 20 seconds
sound | 2 minutes 20 seconds
light in fiber | 235 micros (microseconds)
light in vacuum | 165 micros (microseconds)
(assuming direct great-circle paths) [More...]
- Map: