How should i check if gravatar exist?

Question

using this gem https://github.com/sinisterchipmunk/gravatar how do i check if gravatar for specified email exist or not? I think i am missing some force default option? Because this

url = Gravatar.new("generic@example.com").image_url

always return a picture

Have you tried with an invalid email address other than `generic@example.com` ? — Benjamin Tan Wei Hao, Jul 20 '12 at 16:39

score 44 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 13 '15 at 14:44

44

In case people would like to know how to do it without any gems :

The trick is to get gravatar image with a false default image and then check header response. It's achieved with the Net::HTTP ruby library.

require 'net/http'

def gravatar?(user)
    gravatar_check = "http://gravatar.com/avatar/#{Digest::MD5.hexdigest(user.gravatar_email.downcase)}.png?d=404"
    uri = URI.parse(gravatar_check)
    http = Net::HTTP.new(uri.host, uri.port)
    request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri.request_uri)
    response = http.request(request)
    response.code.to_i != 404 # from d=404 parameter
end

edited Aug 13 '15 at 14:44

scarver2

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answered Jun 22 '13 at 11:45

Noémien Kocher

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But if email doesn't exists, it doesn't reply with 404, but with the default gravatar, so how could you return false? – Augustin Riedinger Oct 13 '13 at 22:51
Yes, that's exactly what allows you to get an error if there is no gravatar, because you provide a false default picture. – Noémien Kocher Feb 17 '14 at 16:43
@ Noémien Kocher This works great for me on localhost, but when I deploy to Heroku, I get the error 'uninitialized constant Net::HTTP' Does anyone know why? – 681234 Jun 15 '15 at 20:19
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@TomD did you try to add "require 'net/http'" at the top of your file ? – Noémien Kocher Jun 16 '15 at 19:15
@ Noémien Kocher. No, I hadn't done that, and adding it as you suggest resolved the issue. Many thanks! – 681234 Jun 28 '15 at 18:24
also start with `require 'digest'` – pihentagy Mar 12 '21 at 14:06

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 20 '12 at 16:47

8

Looking at that gem's documentation, it sounds like you need an API key before you can run the exists method:

Fine, but how about the rest of the API as advertised at en.gravatar.com/site/implement/xmlrpc? Well, for that you need either the user’s Gravatar password, or their API key:

api = Gravatar.new("generic@example.com", :api_key => "AbCdEfG1234")

api.exists?("another@example.com") #=> true or false, depending on whether the specified email exists.

If the user doesn't have a gravatar, an image will be generated for them based on the email (at least that has been my experience). I've used the gem gravatar_image_tag - http://rubygems.org/gems/gravatar_image_tag which lets you change the default gravatar image.

answered Jul 20 '12 at 16:47

someoneinomaha

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This is maybe another approach to try: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2103620/gravatar-how-do-i-know-if-a-user-has-a-real-picture?rq=1 – someoneinomaha Jul 20 '12 at 21:54
well, i just did not catch the politics gem vs gravatar. As in written in gravatar documentation u can easy pass d= parameter to an image request: 404: do not load any image if none is associated with the email hash, instead return an HTTP 404 (File Not Found) response. That i was looking for in the mentioned gem – Jakub Kuchar Jul 21 '12 at 16:06

alexey_the_cat · Answer 3 · 2014-01-08T15:04:12.103

1

if (response.code.to_i == 404)
  return false
else
  return true
end

Instead of whole block, use only this(as a last line):

response.code.to_i != 404

edited Jan 08 '14 at 15:04

answered Jan 08 '14 at 09:18

alexey_the_cat

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How should i check if gravatar exist?

3 Answers3