active_model_serializers 0.8.3 → 0.10.8

data/DESIGN.textile

@@ -1,586 +0,0 @@
-<strong>This was the original design document for serializers.</strong> It is useful mostly for historical purposes as the public API has changed.
-
-h2. Rails Serializers
-
-This guide describes how to use Active Model serializers to build non-trivial JSON services in Rails. By reading this guide, you will learn:
-
-* When to use the built-in Active Model serialization
-* When to use a custom serializer for your models
-* How to use serializers to encapsulate authorization concerns
-* How to create serializer templates to describe the application-wide structure of your serialized JSON
-* How to build resources not backed by a single database table for use with JSON services
-
-This guide covers an intermediate topic and assumes familiarity with Rails conventions. It is suitable for applications that expose a
-JSON API that may return different results based on the authorization status of the user.
-
-h3. Serialization
-
-By default, Active Record objects can serialize themselves into JSON by using the `to_json` method. This method takes a series of additional
-parameter to control which properties and associations Rails should include in the serialized output.
-
-When building a web application that uses JavaScript to retrieve JSON data from the server, this mechanism has historically been the primary
-way that Rails developers prepared their responses. This works great for simple cases, as the logic for serializing an Active Record object
-is neatly encapsulated in Active Record itself.
-
-However, this solution quickly falls apart in the face of serialization requirements based on authorization. For instance, a web service
-may choose to expose additional information about a resource only if the user is entitled to access it. In addition, a JavaScript front-end
-may want information that is not neatly described in terms of serializing a single Active Record object, or in a different format than.
-
-In addition, neither the controller nor the model seems like the correct place for logic that describes how to serialize an model object
-*for the current user*.
-
-Serializers solve these problems by encapsulating serialization in an object designed for this purpose. If the default +to_json+ semantics,
-with at most a few configuration options serve your needs, by all means continue to use the built-in +to_json+. If you find yourself doing
-hash-driven-development in your controllers, juggling authorization logic and other concerns, serializers are for you!
-
-h3. The Most Basic Serializer
-
-A basic serializer is a simple Ruby object named after the model class it is serializing.
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class PostSerializer
-  def initialize(post, scope)
-    @post, @scope = post, scope
-  end
-
-  def as_json
-    { post: { title: @post.name, body: @post.body } }
-  end
-end
-</pre>
-
-A serializer is initialized with two parameters: the model object it should serialize and an authorization scope. By default, the
-authorization scope is the current user (+current_user+) but you can use a different object if you want. The serializer also
-implements an +as_json+ method, which returns a Hash that will be sent to the JSON encoder.
-
-Rails will transparently use your serializer when you use +render :json+ in your controller.
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class PostsController < ApplicationController
-  def show
-    @post = Post.find(params[:id])
-    render json: @post
-  end
-end
-</pre>
-
-Because +respond_with+ uses +render :json+ under the hood for JSON requests, Rails will automatically use your serializer when
-you use +respond_with+ as well.
-
-h4. +serializable_hash+
-
-In general, you will want to implement +serializable_hash+ and +as_json+ to allow serializers to embed associated content
-directly. The easiest way to implement these two methods is to have +as_json+ call +serializable_hash+ and insert the root.
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class PostSerializer
-  def initialize(post, scope)
-    @post, @scope = post, scope
-  end
-
-  def serializable_hash
-    { title: @post.name, body: @post.body }
-  end
-
-  def as_json
-    { post: serializable_hash }
-  end
-end
-</pre>
-
-h4. Authorization
-
-Let's update our serializer to include the email address of the author of the post, but only if the current user has superuser
-access.
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class PostSerializer
-  def initialize(post, scope)
-    @post, @scope = post, scope
-  end
-
-  def as_json
-    { post: serializable_hash }
-  end
-
-  def serializable_hash
-    hash = post
-    hash.merge!(super_data) if super?
-    hash
-  end
-
-private
-  def post
-    { title: @post.name, body: @post.body }
-  end
-
-  def super_data
-    { email: @post.email }
-  end
-
-  def super?
-    @scope.superuser?
-  end
-end
-</pre>
-
-h4. Testing
-
-One benefit of encapsulating our objects this way is that it becomes extremely straight-forward to test the serialization
-logic in isolation.
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-require "ostruct"
-
-class PostSerializerTest < ActiveSupport::TestCase
-  # For now, we use a very simple authorization structure. These tests will need
-  # refactoring if we change that.
-  plebe = OpenStruct.new(super?: false)
-  god   = OpenStruct.new(super?: true)
-
-  post  = OpenStruct.new(title: "Welcome to my blog!", body: "Blah blah blah", email: "tenderlove@gmail.com")
-
-  test "a regular user sees just the title and body" do
-    json = PostSerializer.new(post, plebe).to_json
-    hash = JSON.parse(json)
-
-    assert_equal post.title, hash.delete("title")
-    assert_equal post.body, hash.delete("body")
-    assert_empty hash
-  end
-
-  test "a superuser sees the title, body and email" do
-    json = PostSerializer.new(post, god).to_json
-    hash = JSON.parse(json)
-
-    assert_equal post.title, hash.delete("title")
-    assert_equal post.body, hash.delete("body")
-    assert_equal post.email, hash.delete("email")
-    assert_empty hash
-  end
-end
-</pre>
-
-It's important to note that serializer objects define a clear interface specifically for serializing an existing object.
-In this case, the serializer expects to receive a post object with +name+, +body+ and +email+ attributes and an authorization
-scope with a +super?+ method.
-
-By defining a clear interface, it's must easier to ensure that your authorization logic is behaving correctly. In this case,
-the serializer doesn't need to concern itself with how the authorization scope decides whether to set the +super?+ flag, just
-whether it is set. In general, you should document these requirements in your serializer files and programatically via tests.
-The documentation library +YARD+ provides excellent tools for describing this kind of requirement:
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class PostSerializer
-  # @param [~body, ~title, ~email] post the post to serialize
-  # @param [~super] scope the authorization scope for this serializer
-  def initialize(post, scope)
-    @post, @scope = post, scope
-  end
-
-  # ...
-end
-</pre>
-
-h3. Attribute Sugar
-
-To simplify this process for a number of common cases, Rails provides a default superclass named +ActiveModel::Serializer+
-that you can use to implement your serializers.
-
-For example, you will sometimes want to simply include a number of existing attributes from the source model into the outputted
-JSON. In the above example, the +title+ and +body+ attributes were always included in the JSON. Let's see how to use
-+ActiveModel::Serializer+ to simplify our post serializer.
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class PostSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
-  attributes :title, :body
-
-  def serializable_hash
-    hash = attributes
-    hash.merge!(super_data) if super?
-    hash
-  end
-
-private
-  def super_data
-    { email: @post.email }
-  end
-
-  def super?
-    @scope.superuser?
-  end
-end
-</pre>
-
-First, we specified the list of included attributes at the top of the class. This will create an instance method called
-+attributes+ that extracts those attributes from the post model.
-
-NOTE: Internally, +ActiveModel::Serializer+ uses +read_attribute_for_serialization+, which defaults to +read_attribute+, which defaults to +send+. So if you're rolling your own models for use with the serializer, you can use simple Ruby accessors for your attributes if you like.
-
-Next, we use the attributes method in our +serializable_hash+ method, which allowed us to eliminate the +post+ method we hand-rolled
-earlier. We could also eliminate the +as_json+ method, as +ActiveModel::Serializer+ provides a default +as_json+ method for
-us that calls our +serializable_hash+ method and inserts a root. But we can go a step further!
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class PostSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
-  attributes :title, :body
-
-private
-  def attributes
-    hash = super
-    hash.merge!(email: post.email) if super?
-    hash
-  end
-
-  def super?
-    @scope.superuser?
-  end
-end
-</pre>
-
-The superclass provides a default +initialize+ method as well as a default +serializable_hash+ method, which uses
-+attributes+. We can call +super+ to get the hash based on the attributes we declared, and then add in any additional
-attributes we want to use.
-
-NOTE: +ActiveModel::Serializer+ will create an accessor matching the name of the current class for the resource you pass in. In this case, because we have defined a PostSerializer, we can access the resource with the +post+ accessor.
-
-h3. Associations
-
-In most JSON APIs, you will want to include associated objects with your serialized object. In this case, let's include
-the comments with the current post.
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class PostSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
-  attributes :title, :body
-  has_many :comments
-
-private
-  def attributes
-    hash = super
-    hash.merge!(email: post.email) if super?
-    hash
-  end
-
-  def super?
-    @scope.superuser?
-  end
-end
-</pre>
-
-The default +serializable_hash+ method will include the comments as embedded objects inside the post.
-
-<pre lang="json">
-{
-  post: {
-    title: "Hello Blog!",
-    body: "This is my first post. Isn't it fabulous!",
-    comments: [
-      {
-        title: "Awesome",
-        body: "Your first post is great"
-      }
-    ]
-  }
-}
-</pre>
-
-Rails uses the same logic to generate embedded serializations as it does when you use +render :json+. In this case,
-because you didn't define a +CommentSerializer+, Rails used the default +as_json+ on your comment object.
-
-If you define a serializer, Rails will automatically instantiate it with the existing authorization scope.
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class CommentSerializer
-  def initialize(comment, scope)
-    @comment, @scope = comment, scope
-  end
-
-  def serializable_hash
-    { title: @comment.title }
-  end
-
-  def as_json
-    { comment: serializable_hash }
-  end
-end
-</pre>
-
-If we define the above comment serializer, the outputted JSON will change to:
-
-<pre lang="json">
-{
-  post: {
-    title: "Hello Blog!",
-    body: "This is my first post. Isn't it fabulous!",
-    comments: [{ title: "Awesome" }]
-  }
-}
-</pre>
-
-Let's imagine that our comment system allows an administrator to kill a comment, and we only want to allow
-users to see the comments they're entitled to see. By default, +has_many :comments+ will simply use the
-+comments+ accessor on the post object. We can override the +comments+ accessor to limit the comments used
-to just the comments we want to allow for the current user.
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class PostSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
-  attributes :title. :body
-  has_many :comments
-
-private
-  def attributes
-    hash = super
-    hash.merge!(email: post.email) if super?
-    hash
-  end
-
-  def comments
-    post.comments_for(scope)
-  end
-
-  def super?
-    @scope.superuser?
-  end
-end
-</pre>
-
-+ActiveModel::Serializer+ will still embed the comments, but this time it will use just the comments
-for the current user.
-
-NOTE: The logic for deciding which comments a user should see still belongs in the model layer. In general, you should encapsulate concerns that require making direct Active Record queries in scopes or public methods on your models.
-
-h4. Modifying Associations
-
-You can also rename associations if required. Say for example you have an association that
-makes sense to be named one thing in your code, but another when data is serialized.
-You can use the <code:key</code> option to specify a different name for an association.
-Here is an example:
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class UserSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
-  has_many :followed_posts, :key => :posts
-  has_one :owned_account, :key => :account
-end
-</pre>
-
-Using the <code>:key</code> without a <code>:serializer</code> option will use implicit detection
-to determine a serializer. In this example, you'd have to define two classes: <code>PostSerializer</code>
-and <code>AccountSerializer</code>. You can also add the <code>:serializer</code> option
-to set it explicitly:
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class UserSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
-  has_many :followed_posts, :key => :posts, :serializer => CustomPostSerializer
-  has_one :owne_account, :key => :account, :serializer => PrivateAccountSerializer
-end
-</pre>
-
-h3. Customizing Associations
-
-Not all front-ends expect embedded documents in the same form. In these cases, you can override the
-default +serializable_hash+, and use conveniences provided by +ActiveModel::Serializer+ to avoid having to
-build up the hash manually.
-
-For example, let's say our front-end expects the posts and comments in the following format:
-
-<pre lang="json">
-{
-  post: {
-    id: 1
-    title: "Hello Blog!",
-    body: "This is my first post. Isn't it fabulous!",
-    comments: [1,2]
-  },
-  comments: [
-    {
-      id: 1
-      title: "Awesome",
-      body: "Your first post is great"
-    },
-    {
-      id: 2
-      title: "Not so awesome",
-      body: "Why is it so short!"
-    }
-  ]
-}
-</pre>
-
-We could achieve this with a custom +as_json+ method. We will also need to define a serializer for comments.
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class CommentSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
-  attributes :id, :title, :body
-
-  # define any logic for dealing with authorization-based attributes here
-end
-
-class PostSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
-  attributes :title, :body
-  has_many :comments
-
-  def as_json
-    { post: serializable_hash }.merge!(associations)
-  end
-
-  def serializable_hash
-    post_hash = attributes
-    post_hash.merge!(association_ids)
-    post_hash
-  end
-
-private
-  def attributes
-    hash = super
-    hash.merge!(email: post.email) if super?
-    hash
-  end
-
-  def comments
-    post.comments_for(scope)
-  end
-
-  def super?
-    @scope.superuser?
-  end
-end
-</pre>
-
-Here, we used two convenience methods: +associations+ and +association_ids+. The first,
-+associations+, creates a hash of all of the define associations, using their defined
-serializers. The second, +association_ids+, generates a hash whose key is the association
-name and whose value is an Array of the association's keys.
-
-The +association_ids+ helper will use the overridden version of the association, so in
-this case, +association_ids+ will only include the ids of the comments provided by the
-+comments+ method.
-
-
-h3. Special Association Serializers
-
-So far, associations defined in serializers use either the +as_json+ method on the model
-or the defined serializer for the association type. Sometimes, you may want to serialize
-associated models differently when they are requested as part of another resource than
-when they are requested on their own.
-
-For instance, we might want to provide the full comment when it is requested directly,
-but only its title when requested as part of the post. To achieve this, you can define
-a serializer for associated objects nested inside the main serializer.
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class PostSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
-  class CommentSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
-    attributes :id, :title
-  end
-
-  # same as before
-  # ...
-end
-</pre>
-
-In other words, if a +PostSerializer+ is trying to serialize comments, it will first
-look for +PostSerializer::CommentSerializer+ before falling back to +CommentSerializer+
-and finally +comment.as_json+.
-
-h3. Overriding the Defaults
-
-h4. Authorization Scope
-
-By default, the authorization scope for serializers is +:current_user+. This means
-that when you call +render json: @post+, the controller will automatically call
-its +current_user+ method and pass that along to the serializer's initializer.
-
-If you want to change that behavior, simply use the +serialization_scope+ class
-method.
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class PostsController < ApplicationController
-  serialization_scope :current_app
-end
-</pre>
-
-You can also implement an instance method called (no surprise) +serialization_scope+,
-which allows you to define a dynamic authorization scope based on the current request.
-
-WARNING: If you use different objects as authorization scopes, make sure that they all implement whatever interface you use in your serializers to control what the outputted JSON looks like.
-
-h3. Using Serializers Outside of a Request
-
-The serialization API encapsulates the concern of generating a JSON representation of
-a particular model for a particular user. As a result, you should be able to easily use
-serializers, whether you define them yourself or whether you use +ActiveModel::Serializer+
-outside a request.
-
-For instance, if you want to generate the JSON representation of a post for a user outside
-of a request:
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-user = get_user # some logic to get the user in question
-PostSerializer.new(post, user).to_json # reliably generate JSON output
-</pre>
-
-If you want to generate JSON for an anonymous user, you should be able to use whatever
-technique you use in your application to generate anonymous users outside of a request.
-Typically, that means creating a new user and not saving it to the database:
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-user = User.new # create a new anonymous user
-PostSerializer.new(post, user).to_json
-</pre>
-
-In general, the better you encapsulate your authorization logic, the more easily you
-will be able to use the serializer outside of the context of a request. For instance,
-if you use an authorization library like Cancan, which uses a uniform +user.can?(action, model)+,
-the authorization interface can very easily be replaced by a plain Ruby object for
-testing or usage outside the context of a request.
-
-h3. Collections
-
-So far, we've talked about serializing individual model objects. By default, Rails
-will serialize collections, including when using the +associations+ helper, by
-looping over each element of the collection, calling +serializable_hash+ on the element,
-and then grouping them by their type (using the plural version of their class name
-as the root).
-
-For example, an Array of post objects would serialize as:
-
-<pre lang="json">
-{
-  posts: [
-    {
-      title: "FIRST POST!",
-      body: "It's my first pooooost"
-    },
-    { title: "Second post!",
-      body: "Zomg I made it to my second post"
-    }
-  ]
-}
-</pre>
-
-If you want to change the behavior of serialized Arrays, you need to create
-a custom Array serializer.
-
-<pre lang="ruby">
-class ArraySerializer < ActiveModel::ArraySerializer
-  def serializable_array
-    serializers.map do |serializer|
-      serializer.serializable_hash
-    end
-  end
-
-  def as_json
-    hash = { root => serializable_array }
-    hash.merge!(associations)
-    hash
-  end
-end
-</pre>
-
-When generating embedded associations using the +associations+ helper inside a
-regular serializer, it will create a new <code>ArraySerializer</code> with the
-associated content and call its +serializable_array+ method. In this case, those
-embedded associations will not recursively include associations.
-
-When generating an Array using +render json: posts+, the controller will invoke
-the +as_json+ method, which will include its associations and its root.

data/Gemfile.edge

@@ -1,9 +0,0 @@
-source 'http://rubygems.org'
-
-gemspec
-
-gem 'rails', github: 'rails/rails'
-
-# Current dependencies of edge rails
-gem 'journey', github: 'rails/journey'
-gem 'activerecord-deprecated_finders' , github: 'rails/activerecord-deprecated_finders'

data/bench/perf.rb

@@ -1,43 +0,0 @@
-require "rubygems"
-require "bundler/setup"
-require "active_model_serializers"
-require "active_support/json"
-require "benchmark"
-
-class User < Struct.new(:id,:name,:age,:about) 
-  include ActiveModel::SerializerSupport
-  
-  def fast_hash
-    h = { 
-      id: read_attribute_for_serialization(:id), 
-      name: read_attribute_for_serialization(:name), 
-      about: read_attribute_for_serialization(:about)
-    }
-    h[:age] = read_attribute_for_serialization(:age) if age > 18
-    h
-  end
-end
-
-class UserSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
-  attributes :id, :name, :age, :about
-
-  def include_age?
-    object.age > 18
-  end
-end
-
-
-
-u = User.new(1, "sam", 10, "about")
-s = UserSerializer.new(u)
-
-n = 100000
-
-Benchmark.bmbm {|x| 
-  x.report("init") { n.times { UserSerializer.new(u) } }
-  x.report("fast_hash") { n.times { u.fast_hash } }
-  x.report("attributes") { n.times { UserSerializer.new(u).attributes } } 
-  x.report("serializable_hash") { n.times { UserSerializer.new(u).serializable_hash } }
-}   
-
-

data/cruft.md

@@ -1,19 +0,0 @@
-As of Ruby 1.9.3, it is impossible to dynamically generate a Symbol
-through interpolation without generating garbage. Theoretically, Ruby
-should be able to take care of this by building up the String in C and
-interning the C String.
-
-Because of this, we avoid generating dynamic Symbols at runtime. For
-example, instead of generating the instrumentation event dynamically, we
-have a constant with a Hash of events:
-
-```ruby
-INSTRUMENT = {
-  :serialize => :"serialize.serializer",
-  :associations => :"associations.serializer"
-}
-```
-
-If Ruby ever fixes this issue and avoids generating garbage with dynamic
-symbols, this code can be removed.
-