Elm get raw JSON string

Question

I'm trying to build a very simple app that will just output the raw JSON object from an api.

So I want a function that will take a url parameter and ideally return the JSON string.

I have the following code:

decode: String -> String
decode jsonString =
  Decode.decodeString jsonString

apiResonse : String -> String
apiResonse url =
  let
    url = "https://api.giphy.com/v1/gifs/random?api_key=dc6zaTOxFJmzC&tag=cats"
    request = Http.get Decode.decodeString url
  in
    Http.send NewRequest request

But I'm struggling to understand the decoder part of the function. If anyone could help me that would be great.

Answer 1

If you just want to get the HTTP response as a string value, use Http.getString. The example you posted using Http.get assumes the result is in JSON and forces you to decode it to an Elm value.

Here is a modified example of the random cat generator code which just displays a dump of the response JSON instead of a cat picture:

getRandomGif : String -> Cmd Msg
getRandomGif topic =
  let
    url =
      "https://api.giphy.com/v1/gifs/random?api_key=dc6zaTOxFJmzC&tag=" ++ topic
  in
    Http.send NewGif (Http.getString url)

Here is a working example on ellie-app.com