How to load submodels with foreign key relation in Backbone.js?

Question

Sorry if this is a bit confusing ... I'm still learning Backbone.js ...

What is the right way to load and save Backbone models that have submodels within themselves? (And should I have submodels?)

For example (pardon the coffeescript) if I have something like:

class Address extends Backbone.Model urlRoot: '/api/v1/address/' url: -> return @ urlRoot+@id +'/?format=json' defaults: {'city': '', 'state': ''} class Person extends Backbone.Model urlRoot: '/api/v1/person/' url: -> return @ urlRoot+@id +'/?format=json' defaults: { name: 'Anon', address: new Address } ... and then I do this ... dude = new Person dude.set('id',101) dude.fetch() // Response returns {name: 'The Dude', address: '/api/v1/address/1998/'} // And now, dude.get('address') is '/api/v1/address/1998' and no Address object where = new Address where.set('id',1998) where.fetch() // Response returns {city: 'Venice', state; 'CA'} 

I want to say dude.fetch () and for him to get both the dude and his address, and when I call Backbone.sync ('update', dude), I want to save both the dude and his address. How?

On the backend, I use tastypie to build an api for some SQLAlchemy tables (not Django ORM), so I have a resource for the Person table and the Address table:

 class AddressResource(SQLAlchemyResource): class Meta: resource_name = 'address' object_class = AddressSQLAlchemyORMClass class PersonResource(SQLAlchemyResource): address = ForeignKey(AddressResource, 'address') class Meta: resource_name = 'person' object_class = PersonSQLAlchemyORMClass 

Tastypie The ForeignKey function creates a mapping that returns a URL to the specified address.

I tried to overload the Dude.parse () function to call the selection for Address (), but it didn’t work, and it felt wrong, and it raised all kinds of questions:

• Should I modify my tastypie response to include Address as a nested object?
• If I go to a nested object, should I use backbone-relational , as in the question Basic-relational models that are not created , or is this overflow?
• Should I overload the parse () or fetch () function or create my own framework. Sync () to receive the response and then do it manually?
• Since it is one-to-one, should instead use only one model instead of a submodel and send information together in one request?

Is there a standard way to do this?

Answer 1

With Tastypie, you can change the response to a nested object instead of a link by specifying full = True in the ForeignKey definition:

 class PersonResource(SQLAlchemyResource): address = ForeignKey(AddressResource, 'address', full=True) 

This returns the address object along with the person.

Then I still do not know if this is the best way, but I moved my submodule from the attributes and overloaded parse () to set it, and update () to save it, for example:

 class Person extends Backbone.Model address: new Address urlRoot: '/api/v1/person/' url: -> return @ urlRoot+@id +'/?format=json' defaults: { name: 'Anon'} parse: (response) -> addressResp = response.address || {} addressAttr = @address.parse(addressResp) @address.set(addressAttr) return response update: (options) -> @set('address',@address.toJSON()) Backbone.sync 'update', @, options 

In this example, I could add the address back to the attributes and manage it with set / get, but then in my own environment I created an alternative JSON function to send json to the server and couldn’t find a good way to set json for an object, not changing it from collection to json response.