Serialize

Move serialization logic out of your model

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'serialize'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install serialize

Usage

class UserSerializer < Serialize
  # create a default serialization structure
  structure do |user|
    {
      :name   => user.name,
      :gender => user.gender,
      :email  => user.email
    }
  end

  # create a named serialization structure
  structure :extended do
    {
      :name   => user.name,
      :gender => user.gender,
      :email  => user.email,
      :height => user.height,
      :eye_color  => user.eye_color,
      :hair_color => user.hair_color
    }
  end
end

@app = App.find(params[:id])

# serialize your @app object with the default structure
AppSerializer(@app).to_json

# serialize your @app with a specified structure
AppSerializer.new(@app, :as => :extended)

# serializers can take an array of objects
@collection = App.all
AppSerializer.new(@collection, :as => :extended)

Enabling XML Support

# include dependenies
gem "activesupport"
gem "builder"

# require serialize/xml
require "serialize"
require "serialize/xml"

Serialization Formats

The serialize gem comes with JSON support enabled by default. XML has been disabled, but can be required. You can also add your own forms of serialization.

To do this, you'll have to define a render method that accepts *args. Because JSON and XML parsing pass different arguments *args keeps the interface generic.

The hash to be serialized will be available as content.

Once your serialization format is built register it with by using the Serialize.register method.

class Serialize::CSV < Serialize::Format
  def render(*args)
    if args.empty?
      # turn hash into CSV
    else
      # do something else because arguments are passed in
    end
  end
end

Serialize.register "text/csv", Serialize::CSV

Contributing

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Added some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request