Nested level is different between JSON and XML formats

[mikhailov]

I was surprised to see that child block fetches an associations instead of instance's variable with the same name, so I was going to use node block to force to use my scoped data-set, not just the associations.

What I have:

child :questions do
  attributes :id, :interview_id, :time
end

What I'd like to have:

child :questions.available do
  attributes :id, :interview_id, :time
end

available is a scope I wanted to provide with API.

I decided to use the node block like the following:

node :questions do
  @questions.map do |q|
     { id: q.id, interview_id: q.interview_id, time: q.time } 
  end
end

It shows the same XML, but invalid nested JSON data set, to make it properly in JSON I do:

node :questions do
  @questions.map do |q|
    { question: { id: q.id, interview_id: q.interview_id, time: q.time }}
  end
end

Now JSON the same as with child, but XML is different, nested level is invalid.

[databyte]

Hmm, I would try something like:

node :questions do |q|
  partial 'questions/index', q.available
end

# questions/index.rabl
attributes :id, :interview_id, :time

[mikhailov]

@databyte I'll check it out, but I would like to see the same data structure across multiple formats XML and JSON for a node block without extra partials.

[databyte]

Well JSON and XML technically have different protocols. The problem with JSON in your case is that the hash itself needs to be labeled. If you had a questions node and embedded an array of hashes, it should work.

valid JSON:

{ "questions": [ {"id": 1}, {"id": 2} ] }

[mikhailov]

@databyte thanks for the answer, but let me explain a little bit more. While I used to have dataset built with child, the XML and JSON responses were identically. Once I tried to use node I can't do the same. The general concern still not answered - Is this possible to use scoped explicit data, but not implicit associations?

[databyte]

So you still want to use:

child :questions.available do
  attributes :id, :interview_id, :time
end

Or are you asking about how you can manipulate node to generate the same output?

In general, I'm a fan of presenters and I don't personally like to make complex RABL template files because it obfuscates my intent. My general answer for complex templates is presenters and decorators but your example seems simple enough that I don't see why it would be needed. I just don't think I understand your question well enough - and that's probably because I have to see the output of your node code in both JSON and XML.

Personally, I just don't have any projects that output both JSON and XML that need to match schemas. In fact, if I were to build a project - I'd guess my JSON would actually be more terse than my XML and my JSON would probably also include RESTful URIs to other resources instead of embedding everything within a single resource. Because I would most likely parse my XML in its entirety or transform it but with the JSON I would manipulate client-side immediately by pulling out what I need or queuing up more async requests. But again, that's just me.

So maybe sample output from node code would highlight the problem better?

[databyte]

Leaving open, v1 gets some XML love.