Serialize authenticated Mechanize sessions in Ruby

authenticated_scraper.rb

class AuthenticatedScraper
  def initialize(args)
    if args[:session]
      @cookie_jar = args[:session]
      @agent = Mechanize.new
      @agent.cookie_jar = load_session(@cookie_jar)
    else
      @agent = Mechanize.new
      @agent.login(args[:username], args[ password])
    end
      @page                           = agent.get(initial_page)
      @page_source                    = @page.parser.xpath("//html").to_html.to_s
      @login_status                   = check_session_status
  end

  def load_session(cookie_jar)
    @agent.cookie_jar = YAML::load(cookie_jar)
  end

  def save_session
    @agent.cookie_jar.to_yaml
  end
end

# Initial instantiation
if user.settings(:browser).session.nil?
  obj = AuthenticatedScraper.new(username: "user", password: "pass")
  serialized_session = obj.save_session
  user.settings(:browser).session = serialized_session
end
  obj.get(page)

# Subsequent instantiations
serialized_sesion = user.settings(:browser).session
obj = AuthenticatedScraper.new(sesion: serialized_sesion)
obj.get(page)
user.settings(:browser).session = obj.save_session