Parsing data in Backbone.js - javascript

I've got a number of backbone models which have a number of nested sub-models. My solution looks like this:
Models.Base = Backbone.Model.extend ({
relatedModels: {},
/**
* Parses data sent according to the list of related models.
*
* #since Version 1
* #param {Object} response Response
* #return {Object} Parsed data
*/
parse: function (response) {
var key,
embeddedClass,
embeddedData;
for (key in this.relatedModels) {
embeddedClass = this.relatedModels[key];
embeddedData = response[key];
response[key] = new embeddedClass (embeddedData, { parse: true });
}
return response;
}
});
(using stuff gleaned from this post - Nested Models in Backbone.js, how to approach)
This works fine whilst I'm getting stuff from the server:
Models.Individual = Models.Base.extend({
idAttribute: "idInd",
urlRoot: "data/individuals/save",
relatedModels: {
details: Collections.DetailList,
relationships: Collections.RelationshipList
}
});
... but when I try and initialise a model from a plain bit of JSON, for example if I were to do this:
var Ind = new Models.Individual ({
idInd: 1,
name: "Bob Holness",
details: [
{ option: "I'd like an 'e' please, bob" },
{ option: "Can I have a 'p' please, bob" }
],
relationships: []
});
... it doesn't seem to want to parse "details". I'd guess that was because it's not running the Parse function, but anyway - how can I get it to parse the data in both instances?

The easiest way to do it would be to pass parse: true to the constructor, like so:
var Ind = new Models.Individual ({
idInd: 1,
...
}, { parse: true });
If you do this a lot you can override the constructor in your base class and make it pass parse: true every time you create a new model instance:
Models.Base = Backbone.Model.extend({
constructor: function(attributes, options) {
var opts = $.extend({}, options || {});
if (_.isUndefined(opts.parse)) {
opts.parse = true;
}
Backbone.Model.call(this, attributes, opts);
},
...
});

Related

Backbone parse server response to model

I'm trying to deal with a server response, and am a little confused how to turn the json response into Backbone Models.
My Backbone model looks like so:
Entities.Recipe = Backbone.Model.extend({
defaults: {
id: '',
name: '',
introduction: ''
},
parse: function (response)
{
if(._isObject(response.results)){
return response.results
else {
return response
}
})
Entities.RecipeCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
url: 'recipes',
model: Entities.Recipe
)}
var API = {
getRecipeEntities: function (){
var recipes = new Entities.RecipeCollection()
var defer = $.Deferred()
recipes.fetch({
url: 'http://3rdpartyApilocation.com/recipes'
success: function (data) {
defer.resolve(data)
}
})
var promise = defer.promise()
$.when(promise).done(function (fetchedData)
{})
return promise
}
RecipeManager.reqres.setHandler('recipe:entities', function()
{
return API.getRecipeEntities()
}
And the response.results is an Array of objects - with each object having an id key, a name key and an introduction key. But because I am so inexperienced with Backbone I have no idea how to map those results to the model?
I have installed Chromes Marionette inspector and when I look at the entire array of results seems to be passed to the model, rather than each individual object within each response.result being set to each individual model. Sorry if I can't be more clear - I'm very new to Backbone...
Perhaps your confusion is because you're in fact able to use parse on a model or on a collection. And from your explanation it looks like the response.results object returns a list of objects that you want to become models in your application. But because you're catching that object in a model, the model doesn't know what to do with that array.
Let's say you have a response like this:
{
"status": "ok",
"results": [
{
"id": 1,
"name": "Pie"
}, {
"id": 2,
"name": "Rice"
}, {
"id": 3,
"name": "Meatballs"
}
]
}
Then you would just use parse on your Collection to let it know the response isn't array itself, and help it find it in the results property.
Here's a working example:
var Recipe = Backbone.Model.extend();
var Recipes = Backbone.Collection.extend({
model: Recipe,
url: 'http://www.mocky.io/v2/56390090120000fa08a61a57',
parse: function(response){
return response.results;
}
});
var recipes = new Recipes();
recipes.fetch().done(function(){
recipes.each(function(recipe){
/** Just demo of the fetched data */
$(document.body).append('<p>'+ recipe.get('name') +'</p>');
});
});
<script src='http://code.jquery.com/jquery.js'></script>
<script src='http://underscorejs.org/underscore.js'></script>
<script src='http://backbonejs.org/backbone.js'></script>

Cannot get the result of the Backbone model fetch

My model urlRoot:
urlRoot: function() {
if (this.id != null ) {
return 'notes/' + this.id;
} else return 'notes';
}
Function:
window.show_note = function (note_id) {
var note = new Memo.Models.Note([], { id: note_id });
note.fetch({
success: function (collection, note, response) {
var noteObj = collection.get("0");
var noteView = new Memo.Views.FullNote( {model: noteObj }, {flag: 0 } );
$('.content').html(noteView.render().el);
}
});}
{ id: note_id } - I post this to server to get note by id
I want to do 'set' or 'get' functions on model 'note' after note.fetch in a callback function - success, but only I have is error: 'Uncaught TypeError: note.set is not a function'.
If I do this way: 'var noteObj = collection.get("0");'
I get that I need but I still can`t use get or set.
You should set urlRoot to:
urlRoot: '/notes'
And backbone will figure out that it needs to add the id to the url. (docs)
Assuming Memo.Models.Note is a model and not a collection, the above snippet should be like this:
window.show_note = function(note_id) {
var note = new Memo.Models.Note({ id: note_id });
note.fetch({
success: function (model, response, options) {
var noteView = new Memo.Views.FullNote({
model: model
}, {flag: 0 });
$('.content').html(noteView.render().el);
}
});
};
Note the argument passed to new Memo.Models.Note. A backbone model constructor takes two arguments: attributes and options (docs) as opposed to a collection, which takes models and options (docs). So you'll want to add the hash with the id property as the first argument.
Also note the function signature of the success callback. For a model the success callback takes three arguments: model, response and options (docs). You'll be interested in the model argument because that is the fetched backbone model. response is the raw response data.
I hope my assumptions are right and this is the answer you are looking for.

How can I fake Collection data?

What I mean by this is I want to create it artificially.
This is for testing purposes.
But for models, it is quite simple. I just set defaults I instantiate the model object and from there I can use this.model.toJSON() to grab the created data.
I want to use this same trick with collections. Is there a similar way to do this with collections? What I would want to do is have the collection create x ( 8 in this case ) copies of Model defaults.
Basically what I was doing before for models but a little bit more complex as it applies to Collections.
Here is the actual use case. It should be simple.
/**Model
**/
// name, picture, time, tweet, h_file
var FeedRow = Backbone.Model.extend({
Name: 'FeedRow',
defaults: {
name: "default",
picture: 0,
time: "0",
tweet: "default",
h_file: "default"
}
});
/**Collection
**/
var FeedTable = Backbone.Collection.extend({
Name: 'FeedTable',
model: FeedRow
});
When your FeedTable collection is constructed you could set the model on it multiple times in the initialize method.
var FeedTable = Backbone.Collection.extend(
{
Name: 'FeedTable',
model: FeedRow,
initialize: function()
{
model = this.model;
models = [];
_.times(8, function(n)
{
models.push(new model({id: (n + 1)}));
});
this.set(models);
}
});

how to call the collection function in model ( backbone) for amd architecture?

// file one
// how to call the choicesCollection setnextOne in ChoicesModel default function(object)
var ChoicesModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
defaults: function() {
// this.collection ??
return {
seq_id: choicesCollection.setnextOne(),
subject: ""
};
},
initialize: function() {
console.log(this);
if (!this.get("seq_id")) {
this.set({"seq_id": this.defaults().seq_id});
}
}
});
// file two
var ChoicesCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
model:ChoicesModel,
setnextOne: function() {
if (!this.length) return 0;
return +this.last().get('seq_id') + 1;
},
// sort
comparator: function(choice) {
return choice.get('seq_id');
}
});
// file three
var choicesCollection = new ChoicesCollection();
Giving some more insight into Manikandan's answer...
If you look at the backbone code you'll see the following (I've removed some bits):
var View = Backbone.View = function(options) {
options || (options = {});
_.extend(this, _.pick(options, viewOptions));
};
// List of view options to be merged as properties.
var viewOptions = ['model', 'collection', 'el', 'id', 'attributes', 'className', 'tagName', 'events'];
As you can see_.pick is used to white list a sub-set of properties from the options passed in. The View prototype is then extended to bolt on these properties (if they've been passed).
In short, the following properties are automatically thrown onto your view if you pass them as options:
model, collection, el, id, attributes, className
As per the backbone documentation you should access the collection by this.collection once you added model to collection. Or you need to send collection option when you create a model.

Backbone.js model with collection

I have 2 models and one collection. JobSummary is a model, JobSummaryList is a collection of JobSummary items, and then I have a JobSummarySnapshot model that contains a JobSummaryList:
JobSummary = Backbone.Model.extend({});
JobSummaryList = Backbone.Collection.extend({
model: JobSummary
});
JobSummarySnapshot = Backbone.Model.extend({
url: '/JobSummaryList',
defaults: {
pageNumber: 1,
summaryList: new JobSummaryList()
}
});
When I call fetch on the JobSummarySnapshot object, it gets everything... Except when I move through the summaryList collection they are all of type object and not JobSummary.
I suppose this makes sense since other than the defaults object, it doesn't know that the summaryList should be of type JobSummaryList. I can go through each item and convert it to a JobSummary object, but I was hoping there was a way to do it without having to do it manually.
Here's my test code (working jsfiddle here):
var returnData = {
pageNumber: 3,
summaryList: [
{
id: 5,
name: 'name1'},
{
id: 6,
name: 'name2'}
]
};
var fakeserver = sinon.fakeServer.create();
fakeserver.respondWith('GET', '/JobSummaryList', [200,
{
'Content-Type': 'application/json'},
JSON.stringify(returnData)]);
var callback = sinon.spy();
var summarySnapshot = new JobSummarySnapshot();
summarySnapshot.bind('change', callback);
summarySnapshot.fetch();
fakeserver.respond();
var theReturnedList = callback.getCall(0).args[0].attributes.summaryList;
_.each(theReturnedList, function(item) {
console.log('Original Item: ');
console.log(item instanceof JobSummary); // IS FALSE
var convertedItem = new JobSummary(item);
console.log('converted item: ');
console.log(convertedItem instanceof JobSummary); // IS TRUE
});
UPDATE:
It occurred to me that I could override the parse function and set it that way... I have this now:
JobSummarySnapshot = Backbone.Model.extend({
url: '/JobSummaryList',
defaults: {
pageNumber: 1,
summaryList: new JobSummaryList()
},
parse: function(response) {
this.set({pageNumber: response.pageNumber});
var summaryList = new JobSummaryList();
summaryList.add(response.summaryList);
this.set({summaryList: summaryList});
}
});
This works so far. Leaving the question open in case someone has comment on it....
Your parse() function shouldn't set() anything, its a better practice to just return the attributes, Backbone will take care of setting it. e.g.
parse: function(response) {
response.summaryList = new JobSummaryList(response.summaryList);
return response;
}
Whatever you return from parse() is passed to set().
Not returning anything (which is like returning undefined) is the same as calling set(undefined), which could cause it not to pass validation, or some other unexpected results if your custom validate()/set() methods expects to get an object. If your validation or set() method fails because of that, the options.success callback passed to Backbone.Model#fetch() won't be called.
Also, to make this more generic, so that set()ing to a plain object from other places (and not only from the server response) also effects it, you might want to override set() instead:
set: function(attributes, options) {
if (attributes.summaryList !== undefined && !(attributes.summaryList instanceof JobSummaryList)) {
attributes.summaryList = new JobSummaryList(attributes.summaryList);
}
return Backbone.Model.prototype.set.call(this, attributes, options);
}
You might also find Backbone-relational interesting - it makes it much easier to deal with collections/models nested inside models.
edit I forgot to return from the set() method, the code is now updated

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