Critique some Ruby + RSpec Code for a SERP checker

Question

I found a SERP checker written in PHP and I decided, in order to better learn to program, I would re-write it in Ruby.

All I have written so far takes a list of keywords that a user inputs and cleans the list and turns each keyword into a url for Google search.

Here is the code:

require 'sinatra'
require 'rspec'
get '/serp_checker' do
  "<form action='/ranked' method='post'>
  <label for='keyword'>Keyword</label>
  <textarea name='keyword' id='keyword' type='text' /></textarea>
  <label for='url'>URL</label>
  <input name='url' id='url' type='text' />
  <input type='submit' value='Go!' />
  </form>"
end

def clean_up_keywords(str)
  str.gsub("\n", ",").delete("\r").split(',')
end

def clean_up_list(arr)
  arr.reject(&:empty?).each(&:lstrip!)
end

def make_strings_url_friendly(arr)
  arr.each do |e|
    e.gsub!(" ", "+")
  end
end

def make_urls(arr)
  arr.map {|e| "http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=" + e}
end

post '/ranked' do
  dirty_list = clean_up_keywords(params[:keyword])
  clean_list = clean_up_list(dirty_list)
  url_ready_list = make_strings_url_friendly(clean_list)
  url_list = make_urls(url_ready_list)
end

Here is the spec:

require_relative '../lib/rankypanky.rb'

describe "#clean_up_keywords" do
  it "should push items separated by a newline into array as separate items" do
    clean_up_keywords("apples\noranges").should == ["apples", "oranges"]
  end
  it "should delete all \r chars" do
    clean_up_keywords("Chat\r").should == ["Chat"]
  end
  it "should push items separated by commas into an array" do
    clean_up_keywords("Chat, Meta, About").should == ["Chat", " Meta", " About"]
  end
  it "should push items separated ONLY by a \s char into array as one item" do
    clean_up_keywords("New York, apples").should == ["New York", " apples"]
  end
end

describe "#clean_up_list" do
  it "should not include empty strings/items in array" do
    clean_up_list(["apples", "", "oranges"]).should == ["apples", "oranges"]
  end
  it "should remove any leading white space from items in array" do
    clean_up_list([" oranges", "apples"]).should == ["oranges", "apples"]
  end
end

describe "#make_strings_url_friendly" do
  it "should replace /s with a +" do
    make_strings_url_friendly(["oranges apples"]).should == ["oranges+apples"]
  end
end

describe "#make_urls" do
  it "should append array items to http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=" do
    make_urls(["pie"]).should == ["http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=pie"]
  end
end

Basically I'm looking for any better ways to do this as well as whether my code meets hmmm standards... just some general critique. Thank you so much!

Answer 1

I see you haven't got any response on this for a long while, so I'll give it a try.

I don't really see anything to pick on when it comes to style or technique. To me this looks very good. A few questions though:

1. why do you require "rspec" in the controller code? Shouldn't this be in the test code instead?
2. You don't do any attempt to sanitize or verify that the code works with non-english characters, or other characters that may cause trouble. What if someone type "tørris&message=<script>alert("Hoy there");</script>" in the input form? (I guess google will sanitize it, but it would probably be better to do it before passing the url to them.)