Converting an array of objects to JSON in Ruby

Question

I have a Person class that has a to_json method defined:

class Person

  ...

  def to_json
    {
      last_name: @last_name,
      first_name: @first_name,
      gender: @gender,
      favorite_color: @favorite_color,
      date_of_birth: @date_of_birth
    }.to_json
  end
end

In another class I'm working with an array of Person objects. How can I return this array as a long chunk of valid JSON data? I've tried defining to_json in this new class like so:

class Directory

...

  def to_json
    @people.map do |person|
      person.to_json
    end.to_json
  end
end

But this is is giving me some sort of strange looking thing with a bunch of " and \ characters scattered throughout the JSON data like this:

["{\"last_name\":\"Dole\",\"first_name\":\"Bob\",\"gender\":\"M\",\"favorite_color\":\"Red\",\"date_of_birth\":\"01/02/1950\"}","{\"last_name\":\"Man\",\"first_name\":\"Bean\",\"gender\":\"M\",\"favorite_color\":\"Blue\",\"date_of_birth\":\"04/03/1951\"}","{\"last_name\":\"Man\",\"first_name\":\"Green\",\"gender\":\"F\",\"favorite_color\":\"Yellow\",\"date_of_birth\":\"02/15/1955\"}","{\"last_name\":\"Clinton\",\"first_name\":\"Bill\",\"gender\":\"M\",\"favorite_color\":\"Orange\",\"date_of_birth\":\"02/23/1960\"}"]

whereas calling to_json on one Person is nicely formatted:

{"last_name":"Bob","first_name":"Hob","gender":"M","favorite_color":"red","date_of_birth":"01/01/2000"}

falsetru · Accepted Answer · 2015-08-02 01:49:35Z

3

The code is converting array of strings (json string), not array of hashes.

Instead of using Person#to_json in Directory#to_json, use Person#to_hash like following:

class Person
  def to_hash
    {
      last_name: @last_name,
      first_name: @first_name,
      gender: @gender,
      favorite_color: @favorite_color,
      date_of_birth: @date_of_birth
    }
  end

  def to_json
    to_hash.to_json
  end
end



class Directory
  def to_json
    @people.map do |person|
      person.to_hash
    end.to_json
  end
end

answered Aug 2, 2015 at 1:49

falsetru

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