Rails 5 JSON API with custom JSON response

Question

I'm battling with my JSON rendering. I want to comply with the simple JSend response format.

Basically what I want is the status and the data in my response.

I've set up my Serializer default adapter to json :

ActiveModelSerializers.config.adapter = :json

My serializer is simple :

class RecordSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
  attributes :id, :raw
end

So when I do this :

record_list = @current_user.records
render json: record_list

I got this :

{
    "records": [
        {
            "id": 1,
            "raw": "aaa"
        },
        {
            "id": 2,
            "raw": "bbb"
        }
    ]
}

Now the tricky part, if I want to add a data key on top, it override my records key instead of adding it on top.

render json: record_list, root: "data"

Give this :

{
    "data": [
        {
            "id": 1,
            "raw": "aaa"
        },
        {
            "id": 2,
            "raw": "bbb"
        }
    ]
}

Also, how can I add other keys like the status key ? As soon as I create a custom Hash, the serializer is ignored. So for example this :

render json: {:status=>"success", :code=>200, :message=>"Hello", data: record_list}

Will returns this :

{
    "status": "success",
    "code": 200,
    "message": "Hello",
    "data": [
        {
            "id": 1,
            "raw": "aaa",
            "created_at": "2018-07-16T19:49:32.960Z",
            "updated_at": "2018-07-16T19:49:32.960Z",
        },
        {
            "id": 2,
            "raw": "bbb",
            "created_at": "2018-07-16T20:01:55.804Z",
            "updated_at": "2018-07-16T20:01:55.804Z",
        }
    ]
}

So I think I understand that render json: my_variable alone will understand to transform my_variable into the choosen json serializer adapter but cannot with a custom Hash ?

Of course I could do this :

record_list = {}
record_list["records"] = @current_user.records.select(:id, :raw)

But I feel like this is not the right way and then the Serializer would be useless.

Thanks !

have you thought about opting out of serializers and using jbuilder instead? — andrew21
– andrew21, Commented Jul 17, 2018 at 19:00
you might want to look into json:api and graphQL which both have gems that will set you up with generated serializers that work almost out of the box and provide a lot more structure and functionality than jsend — robertoplancarte
– robertoplancarte, Commented Jul 17, 2018 at 22:20
@robertoplancarte JSON API and graphQL seems heavy for my usage so this is why I wanted something light. — SJU
– SJU, Commented Jul 18, 2018 at 9:10
@andrew21 I will look at it but this seems to bypass the issue and not really solve it. Thanks anyway for the suggestion — SJU
– SJU, Commented Jul 18, 2018 at 9:12
For my Rails-based API application I initially started with representable for generating JSON responses but as my JSON templates grown it didn't provided a clean approach to reuse already defined representations and thus I switched to used rabl-rails and since then I am successfully and satisfactorily using it for generating JSON responses. (contd in next comment) — Jignesh Gohel
– Jignesh Gohel, Commented Jul 18, 2018 at 16:10

SJU · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-12 15:44:40Z

2

I've chosen to give it a try to the Fast JSON API gem from the Netflix team. Great customisation possible, fast and lightweight.

answered Aug 12, 2018 at 15:44

SJU

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1 Comment

Milind Over a year ago

pls be noted - As of today, its not maintained.

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