Fetching album covers from Last.Fm API 3

Posted by Dan Sosedoff on February 15, 2009

As previous post was about fetching covers media from Amazon Web Services, this post will be about fetching covers from popular music site – Last.fm. API documentation page

#!/usr/bin/ruby
 
require 'rubygems'
require 'net/http'
require 'cgi'
require 'xmlsimple'
 
# key from API documentation
$lastfm_key = "b25b959554ed76058ac220b7b2e0a026" 
$lastfm_host = "ws.audioscrobbler.com"
 
def fetch_cover(artist, album)
	artist = CGI.escape(artist)
	album = CGI.escape(album)
 
	path = "/2.0/?method=album.getinfo&api_key=#{$lastfm_key}&artist=#{artist}&album=#{album}"
	data = Net::HTTP.get($lastfm_host, path)
	xml = XmlSimple.xml_in(data)
	if xml['status'] == 'ok' then
		album = xml['album'][0]
 
		cover = {
			:small => album['image'][1]['content'],
			:medium => album['image'][2]['content'],
			:big => album['image'][3]['content']
		}
 
		return cover
	end
 
	return nil
end
 
puts fetch_cover('Nickelback', 'Dark Horse').inspect

Download ruby script