adding metaData to json responses in rails

Question

how would I go about adding meta data to a json response in rails 3.2? Is there some way to access the model metadata and inclue that? ie. the field name, and the data type.

Something like the following:

{
"metaData":{
  "columns":[
     {
        "dataIndex":"id",
        "text":"User ID",
        "type":"integer"
     },
     {
        "dataIndex":"name",
        "text":"User Name",
        "type":"string"
     },
     {
        "dataIndex":"birthday",
        "format":"dd-mmm-yy",
        "text":"Birthday",
        "type":"datetime"
     }
  ]
},
"data":[
  {
     "id":1,
     "name":"Queen Elizabeth",
     "birthday":"1533-09-07T06:33:39Z"
  },
  {
     "id":2,
     "name":"Queen Elizabeth II",
     "birthday":"1926-04-21T02:40:00Z"
  }
]
}

mu is too short · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-20 03:23:09Z

1

Your model class will have a columns method that returns an array of column objects. You could extract most of your metadata from that:

metas = Model.columns.map { |c| c.as_json.slice('name', 'type') }

then you can add that to your response.

answered May 20, 2012 at 3:23

mu is too short

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1 Comment

rogers.ja Over a year ago

.columns is exactly what i was looking for thanks. so obvious too. Thanks!

Cyrus · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-20 07:07:01Z

0

I would probably build that up with something like jbuilder

There's a good railscast episode on how to use it http://railscasts.com/episodes/320-jbuilder

answered May 20, 2012 at 7:07

Cyrus

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