A simple seeds.rb to seed a rails app with data from Yahoo Local. Uses Yahoo's public API so no API key is required.

seeds.rb

#/db/seeds.rb
require 'open-uri' # Needed to open web urls

Restaurant.delete_all
zip = "10006" # Set a search zip
returns_per_term = 5 # How many restaurants to return per query
owner = Owner.first # Need an owner
terms = ["burgers", "italian", "deli", "coffee", "cuban", "japanese", "steakhouse"] # Terms to search for, should all names of categories
terms.each do |term|
	# Query the Yahoo Local API
    url = "http://local.yahooapis.com/LocalSearchService/V3/localSearch?appid=YahooDemo&query=#{term}&zip=#{zip}&results=#{returns_per_term}&output=json"
	json = open(url)
    #Parse the JSON into a hash
	parsed = ActiveSupport::JSON.decode(json)
	parsed['ResultSet']['Result'].each do |result|
		address1 = result['Address'] 
		address1 = "Unknown" if address1.empty? # Some address fields are empty, validations will complain otherwise
		restaurant = owner.restaurants.create!({
			name: result['Title'],
			description: "Replace Me",
			address1:  address1,
			city: result['City'],
			state: result['State'],
			zip: zip,
			phone: result['Phone']
            # If you store the address as a single string instead of separate address1/address2/city/state/zip fields
            # Use the following code instead
            # address: "#{Result['Address']}\nResult['City'], Result['State'] #{zip}"
		})
		restaurant.categories << Category.where({name: term}).first
	end
end