Ruby's built-in Net::HTTP
library
allows us to make different kinds of HTTP requests. We can use it to make a
HEAD request which will request the status of a URL without actually fetching
its contents.
We can work directly with Net::HTTP using strings, but I find it is easier
and less error-prone to get help from the URI class.
To make a #head request, we first need to establish a connection to the host
with the #start
method.
Then we can initiate our request from that connection object.
url = 'https://my.app.com/path/to/video.mp4'
uri = URI(url)
conn = Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port, use_ssl: true)
resp = conn.head(uri.path)
resp.code
#=> "200"We initiate the connection with the host and port of our URL. Then request the
HEAD response for the path of our URL. If we are working with an https URL,
we need to indicate that with use_ssl: true in the #start method options.