Xeroizer ruby library

Given that Xero (cue the hyperbole about how Xero is great) has just updated their development API and they are planning to do this much more in the future, I have taken this opportunity to create my own ruby-based library for it.

This library builds off the awesome work done by Tim Connor for the first & second API releases.

My version changes things up a bit by:

• adding Partner-application support
• making data-access more ActiveRecord-like (although definitely not feature-complete) 
• simplifying the definition (and redefinition as Xero continues to add to their API) of models to make keeping them up-to-date and testable easier.

I also plan on adding some features to the querying engine to make it easier to filter results whilst staying within the ruby language (and not having to drop into C#).

If you want to get started, check out the README or if you want to dive right into the code, head over to https://github.com/waynerobinson/xeroizer and clone a copy.

Note: This is an alpha-level version of the API. Feel free to increase functionality and test coverage and send me a GitHub pull-request for integration.

Comments

[Nik Wakelin]

Hey Wayne,

Tim's generally pretty receptive to commit things back to XeroGateway. I don't see any reason for us to fragment the ecosystem here.

I'm curious as to how you got the Partner Apps working - I've had endless SSL issues (hanging from my Macbook) - which version of openssl have you used?

Nik

[Wayne Robinson]

Yes, Tim is receptive to API changes, in fact I have added a large number of commits myself to xero_gateway however, I wasn't happy with the public-facing data access API and I could forsee no way of making changes to it without deprecating the entire thing and breaking previous apps.

Xeroizer's data model is much cleaner, allows for ActiveRecord like CRU(no D in Xero) and allows simple definition of validations and associations.

As for OpenSSL, if you follow the instructions for a PartnerApplication in the README and are using OpenSSL 0.9.8 or above (the version I am using) everything should be fine on the MacBook. You do need to unpackage the certificates as mentioned in there though. I've had to do some dirty(ish) patching of OAuth to get access token renewal working though, although this should be invisible to the library user.