Rails - Return additional attributes with object from controller using JSON

Question

This is the code in my People Controller for the Create action :

def create
  @person = Person.new(person_params)
  @person.branch_id = session[:branch_id]
  @person.added_by = current_user.id
  if @person.save
    respond_to do |format|
      format.json { render json: @person}
    end
  end
end

And I have a method in my Person Model to get the person's full name :

def full_name
    [self.first_name, self.middle_name, self.last_name].reject(&:blank?).join(" ")
end

What is the best way to add the Person's full name to @person when it is returned back as a JSON object

irruputuncu · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-25 23:03:04Z

5

As you want it to be in the JSON you could just override the as_json method of the Person class to include the options to add the full_name method:

def as_json(options = {})
  super options.merge(methods: [:full_name])
end

This method is used by Rails whenever an object should be serialized into a JSON string, for example by render json: @person. If you only want to add the extra method on this single occasion you can also call it directly inline using render json: @person.as_json(methods: [:full_name]) or if you want to make more complex customizations to the JSON output you could think about using dedicated serializer classes, for example by using the ActiveModel::Serializers gem. However, as you only want to add one method and that probably everywhere you are serializing @person, the best way for your case would be to just override as_json as described in the beginning.

edited Dec 25, 2014 at 23:03

answered Dec 25, 2014 at 19:13

irruputuncu

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pkrawat1 · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-25 19:20:37Z

1

Try this

@person.as_json(methods: :full_name)

answered Dec 25, 2014 at 19:20

pkrawat1

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Jason Mcmunn · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-25 19:09:22Z

0

Check out this article: http://www.tigraine.at/2011/11/17/rails-to_json-nested-includes-and-methods

It's got instructions for doing exactly what you're trying to do, the short story being that you need to pass in :my_method => full_name to the json rendering.

answered Dec 25, 2014 at 19:09

Jason Mcmunn

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