Groovy tricks for easy API calls

I often write quick one time scripts against all manner of remote API's over HTTP. One of the things that helps keep my code succinct is pimping String in various ways.

Almost always I add a method to skip the toURL().getContent().text chain.

// pimp String
String.metaClass.getRemoteContent = {
    delegate.toURL().getContent().text
}

Often I'll create a Category for the API.

class MediaWikiApi {

    String qPageAction = 'action=query&prop=revisions&rvprop=content'

    String wikiPage(String self) {
        "${baseUrl}?titles=${self}&${qPageAction}"
    }
}

Then putting it all together

use(MediaWikiApi) {
    println "Books".wikiPage().getRemoteContent()
}