Getting nested JSON output from Rails

Question

Suppose I have a Rails app with two models Post and Comment. A post has_many comments and a comment belongs_to a post.
How can I override the respond_to function in the show action in order to get a JSON response containing both the Post properties and an array of Comment objects that it has?

Currently it is the vanilla Rails default:

# posts_controller.rb
def show
  @post = current_user.posts.find(params[:id])

  respond_to do |format|
    format.html # show.html.erb
    format.json { render json: @post }
  end
 end

Soundar Rathinasamy · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-17 05:45:12Z

4

You can do that using Active Record serialization method.

to_json

Below code should work.

 format.json { render json: @post.to_json(:include => :comments) }

answered Apr 17, 2012 at 5:45

Soundar Rathinasamy

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Comments

johnmcaliley · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-17 04:28:24Z

2

Try using active_model_serializers for json serialization. It is easy to include associated objects and also separates things by having a different file for serialization.

Example:

class PostSerializer < ApplicationSerializer
    attributes :id, :title, :body
    has_many :comments
end

answered Apr 17, 2012 at 4:28

johnmcaliley

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Comments

JJD · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-03 00:41:05Z

2

You can override to_json in model or you can use Jbuilder or rabl.

edited Feb 3, 2013 at 0:41

JJD

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answered Apr 17, 2012 at 4:31

Amar

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Comments

Vik · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-17 06:05:47Z

1

Rails has provide the best way to respond :

Define respond_to on the top of your controller . like :

class YourController < ApplicationController
  respond_to :xml, :json

  def show
    @post = current_user.posts.find(params[:id])
    respond_with (@post)
  end
end

For more info take a look on : http://davidwparker.com/2010/03/09/api-in-rails-respond-to-and-respond-with/

answered Apr 17, 2012 at 6:05

Vik

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