Import Gmail Contacts using Ruby on Rails
Apr 18th, 2008 by Tom Hunter - Tags: google, google contacts api, Ruby on Rails
In the past importing Gmail contacts was a bit of a hassle. One of the previous options was to use the Contacts gem found at RubyForge. However, now that the Google Contacts API has been released, it offers a more secure (and hopefully reliable) way to retrieve contacts. The Contacts API allows redirecting and authenticating users through Google, instead of forcing them enter their Gmail password into a third party application. Here is a quick tutorial to get up and running in ruby on rails with the Gmail Contacts API.
First, you need to register your domain with Google. This can be as easy as uploading a temporary file to your domain’s root directory to verify control of the domain. The steps for doing this are clearly outlined at Registration for Web-Based Applications.
Once you’ve verified control of the domain with google, start making your requests! Grabbing the contacts is essentially a three step process:
- Initiate the authentication with Gmail. Send your user over to enter their credentials, after which Google passes back an AuthSub token valid for one request.
- Send back the one-time AuthSub token and exchange it for a long-lived token valid for multiple requests.
-
Use this second token to make requests to the Gmail Contacts API and import user’s Gmail contacts.
More detailed steps on how Google Authentication process works can be found at Authentication for Web Applications
Now lets visit the three steps above in more detail, and implement importing gmail contacts using ruby on rails!
1. First redirect your users to authenticate with Gmail and request a one-time use AuthSub token.
# initiate authentication w/ gmail # # create url with url-encoded params to initiate connection with contacts api # # next - The URL of the page that Google should redirect the user to after authentication. # scope - Indicates that the application is requesting a token to access contacts feeds. # secure - Indicates whether the client is requesting a secure token. # session - Indicates whether the token returned can be exchanged for a multi-use (session) token. # next_param = "http%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2F" scope_param = "http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fm8%2Ffeeds%2F" secure_param = "0" session_param = "1" root_url = "https://www.google.com/accounts/AuthSubRequest" query_string = "?scope=#{scope_param}&session=#{session_param}&secure=#{secure_param}&next=#{next_param}" redirect_to root_url + query_string
2. Trade your single-use token for the all powerful AuthSub session token.
require 'net/http' require 'net/https' token = params[:token] # received the single-use authsub token, exchange for authsub session token http = Net::HTTP.new('www.google.com', 443) http.use_ssl = true path = '/accounts/AuthSubSessionToken' headers = {'Authorization' => "AuthSubtoken="#{token}""} resp, data = http.get(path, headers) if resp.code == "200" token = '' data.split.each do |str| if not (str =~ /Token=/).nil? token = str.gsub(/Token=/, '') end end redirect_to "http://www.example.com/?token=#{token}" else redirect_to "http://www.example.com/" end
Note: There’s probably a better way to grab the above token from the response, if anyone would like to suggest a refactoring here please feel free . . .
3. Finally, grab your buddies!
# GET http://www.google.com/m8/feeds/contacts/default/base require 'net/http' require 'rexml/document' http = Net::HTTP.new('www.google.com', 80) # by default Google returns 50? contacts at a time. Set max-results to very high number # in order to retrieve more contacts path = "/m8/feeds/contacts/default/base?max-results=10000" headers = {'Authorization' => "AuthSubtoken="#{authsub_token}""} resp, data = http.get(path, headers) # extract the name and email address from the response data xml = REXML::Document.new(data) contacts = [] xml.elements.each('//entry') do |entry| person = {} person['name'] = entry.elements['title'].text gd_email = entry.elements['gd:email'] person['email'] = gd_email.attributes['address'] if gd_email contacts << person end
Hopefully that should help get you started on the right track. The Google Contacts API allows retrieval of other information besides simply name and email address. I’d be interested in hearing what else is everyone using/doing with this API?
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Thanks for this simple howto.
Thanks, it’s my first encounter with Google’s new APIs and this is very helpful.
A minor note to others, in the last step you’d need to set:
authsub_token = params[:token]
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Nice tutorial!
[...] Google Contacts API using Ruby on Rails The Google Contacts API has been released, it offers a more secure (and hopefully reliable) way to retrieve contacts. Tutorial on doing so using Ruby on Rails (tags: gmail google api rubyonrails) [...]
Import Gmail Contacts using Ruby on Rails…
[...]Tutorial on importing Gmail contacts with Ruby on Rails and the new Google Contacts API[...]…
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[...] Import Gmail Contacts using Ruby on Rails | Atlantic Dominion Solutions Here is a quick tutorial to get up and running in ruby on rails with the Gmail Contacts API. (tags: authentication gmail rails google ruby contacts api rubyonrails programming development) [...]
good work fella
For the java developers that visit this website i point to
http://code.google.com/p/contactlistimporter/
for an implementation in java.
The contactlistimporter that i created supports different services for importing contacts.
Import Gmail Contacts using Ruby on Rails | Atlantic Dominion Solutions…
[...][...]…
Or, simply use the Google Contacts Data API implemented in Ruby: http://github.com/mislav/contacts/tree/master
[...] Import GMail contacts using Rails [...]
[...] pm on May 27, 2008 | # | Tags: dev Just imported my first Google Contacts list, nice tutorial here. [...]
Thanks for the info, it really helped.
[...] came across a fabulous article on getting your RoR app to pull contacts from your Gmail account at Atlantic Domain Solutions: Import Gmail Contacts using Ruby on Rails. Kudos to Atlantic Domain Solutions! This is a really great article. The only slight issue is that [...]
Hi, thanks for the great article. I’ve just added a few clarifications for newbies on my own site at
http://www.theirishpenguin.com/2008/06/25/a-little-help-on-importing-gmail-contacts-using-ruby-on-rails
Thanks again!
The Irish Penguin
Hey, just wondering if you have pluginized this yet?
Great writeup!
Jason
Not yet, but that’s a great idea! I’ll let Tom know.
Thanks! This is very useful. Following your post, I wrote up a blog entry providing code for securely requesting the token here: http://blog.guitarati.com/2008/08/google-accounts-authentication-using.html
Hi,
why I can’t set secure_param to be 1, every time I set this variable to be 1, I get the 403 code. Can anyone help to explain why?
Thank you.
BTW, I’ve uploaded a .pem file in “Manager Your Domain”.
Great article.
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Very nice how-to, congrats
One fix that I needed this to work – you need to remove the outer quotes from around the token parameter.
Btw, the article by IrishPenguin was superb…helped me understand where to hang off all the code!
“AuthSubtoken=#{authsub_token}”
I mean “AuthSubtoken=”#{authsub_token}”” –> not working
“AuthSubtoken=#{authsub_token}” –> working