CollectionJson::Serializer

:warning: This is not finished yet, so use it at your own risk.
:warning: Until version 1.X breaking changes might happen

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CollectionJson::Serializer serializes Ruby objects to Collection+JSON, the hypermedia type by Mike Amudsen.

Please note that CollectionJson::Serializer only serializes data. You still need to set the proper Headers or media-types in your app.

If you're working on a Rails app, you might want to use Collection+JSON Rails instead.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'collection_json_serializer'

Or if you want to use the mornings build:

gem 'collection_json_serializer',
  git: 'https://github.com/carlesjove/collection_json_serializer',
  branch: 'dev'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Usage

As this gem user, you will be mainly writing/generating and mantaining serializers for your models. A serializer goes like:

class UserSerializer < CollectionJson::Serializer
  href "http://example.com/users",

  template :name
  template email: { prompt: "My email" }

  link dashboard: { href: "http://example.com/my-dashboard" }

  query search: {
    href: "http://example.com/search",
    name: false # Don't automatically include the name attribute
  }
  query pagination: {
    rel: "page",
    href: "http://example.com/page",
    prompt: "Select a page number",
    data: [
      { name: "page" }
    ]
  }

  items do
    attribute :id
    attribute name: { prompt: "Your full name" }}
    attribute :email

    href "http://example.com/users/{id}"

    link avatar: { href: "http://assets.example.com/avatar.jpg", render: "image" }
  end
end

Then, you pass your objects to the serializer:

@user = User.new(name: "Carles Jove", email: "hola@carlus.cat")

# Pass it to the serializer
user_serializer = UserSerializer.new(@user)

# You can also pass an array of objects
# user_serializer = UserSerializer.new([@user1, @user2])

# Pass the serializer to the builder
collection = CollectionJson::Serializer::Builder.new(user_serializer)
collection.to_json

# You can get the collection as a hash, too
collection.pack
# => { collection: { version: "1.0" } }

This will generate this Collection+JSON response:

{ "collection": 
  {
    "version" : "1.0",
    "href" : "http://example.com/users",
    "links": [
      { "name": "dashboard", "href": "http://example.com/my-dashboard" }
    ],
    "items" : [{
      "href": "http://example.com/users/1",
      "data": [
        { "name": "id", "value": "1" },
        { "name": "name", "value": "Carles Jove", "prompt": "Your full name" },
        { "name": "email", "value": "email@example.com" },
      ],
      "links": [
        { "name": "avatar", "href": "http://assets.example.com/avatar.jpg",
        "render": "image" }
      ]
    }],
    "template" : {
      "data": [
        { "name": "name", "value": "" },
        { "name": "email", "value": "", "prompt": "My email" }
      ]
    },
    "queries": [{
      "rel": "search",
      "href": "http://example.com/search"
    },{
      "rel": "page",
      "href": "http://example.com/page",
      "name": "pagination",
      "prompt": "Select a page number",
      "data": [
        { "name": "page", "value": "" }
      ]
    }]
  }
}

URL placeholders

Items' URLs can be generated dinamically with a placeholder. A placeholder is a URL segment wrapped in curly braces. A placeholder can be any method that can be called on the object that the serializer takes (i.e. id, username, etc.).

class UserSerializer < CollectionJson::Serializer
  items do
    href "http://example.com/users/{id}"
  end
end

All placeholders will be called, so you can use more than one if necessary, but you may use only one placeholer per segment.

class UserSerializer < CollectionJson::Serializer
  items do
    # This will work
    href "http://example.com/users/{id}/{username}"

    # This won't work
    href "http://example.com/users/{id}-{username}"
  end
end

Please, notice that placeholders can only be used within the items block.

Open Attributes Policy

Collection+JSON Serializer introduces an open attributes policy, which means that objects' attributes can be extended at will. This makes it easy to add custom extensions to suit your particular needs. Be aware that, as the specs say, you must only extend attributes in a way that won't break clients that are not aware of them.

In order to use the Open Attributes policy, it must be declared as an extension.

class UserSerializer < CollectionJson::Serializer
  # Add Open Attrs as an extension
  extensions :open_attrs

  # Now you can use your crazy properties everywhere
  items do
    attribute name: { css_class: "people" }
  end

  template name: { regex: "/\A[a-zA-Z0-9_]*\z/" }

  link profile: { on_click: "reboot_universe" }
end

Contributing

Please, all Pull Request should point to the dev branch. master is for the latest release only.