JaSerializer

jsonapi.org formatting of Elixir data structures suitable for serialization by libraries such as Poison.

Warning: This is Alpha software and subject to breaking changes.

Usage

See documentation on hexdoc for full serialization and usage details.

Serializer Behaviour and DSL:

defmodule MyApp.ArticleSerializer do
  use JaSerializer

  location: "/articles/:id"
  attributes [:title, :tags, :body, :excerpt]

  has_one :author,
    include: PersonSerializer,
    field: :authored_by

  has_many :comments,
    link: "/articles/:id/comments",

  def comments(model, _conn) do
    Comment.for_article(model)
  end

  def excerpt(article, _conn) do
    [first | _ ] = String.split(article.body, ".")
    first
  end
end

Direct Usage

model
|> MyApp.ArticleSerializer.format(conn)
|> Poison.encode!

Relax Usage

See Relax documentation for building fully compatable jsonapi.org APIs with Plug.

Phoenix Usage

Simply use JaSerializer.PhoenixView in your view (or in the Web module) and define your serializer as above.

The render("index.json", data) and render("show.json", data) are defined for you. You can just call render as normal from your controller.

defmodule PhoenixExample.ArticlesController do
  use PhoenixExample.Web, :controller

  def index(conn, _params) do
    render conn, model: PhoenixExample.Repo.all(PhoenixExample.Article)
  end

  def show(conn, params) do
    render conn, model: PhoenixExample.Repo.get(PhoenixExample.Article, params[:id])
  end
end

defmodule PhoenixExample.ArticlesView do
  use PhoenixExample.Web, :view
  use JaSerializer.PhoenixView # Or use in web/web.ex

  attributes [:title]
  #has_many, etc.
end

To use the Phoenix accepts plug you must configure Plug to handle the "application/vnd.api+json" mime type.

Add the following to config.exs:

config :plug, :mimes, %{
  "application/vnd.api+json" => ["json-api"]
}

And then re-compile plug: (per: http://hexdocs.pm/plug/Plug.MIME.html)

touch deps/plug/mix.exs
mix deps.compile plug

And then add json api to your plug pipeline.

pipeline :api do
  plug :accepts, ["json-api"]
end

For strict content-type/accept enforcement and to auto add the proper content-type to responses add the JaSerializer.ContentTypeNegotiation plug.

To normalize attributes to underscores include the JaSerializer.Deserializer plug.

pipeline :api do
  plug :accepts, ["json-api"]
  plug JaSerializer.ContentTypeNegotiation
  plug JaSerializer.Deserializer
end

Configuration

Attribute & Relationship key format

By default keys are dash-erized as per the jsonapi.org recommendation, but keys can be customized via config.

In your config.exs file:

config :ja_serializer,
  key_format: :underscored

You may also pass a custom function that accepts 1 binary argument:

defmodule MyStringModule do
  def camelize(key), do: key #...
end

config :ja_serializer,
  key_format: {:custom, MyStringModule, :camelize}

Custom Attribute Value Formatters

When serializing attribute values more complex then string, numbers, atoms or list of those things it is recommended to implement a custom formatter.

To implement a custom formatter:

defimpl JaSerializer.Formatter, for: [MyStruct] do
  def format(struct), do: struct
end

License

JaSerializer source code is released under Apache 2 License. Check LICENSE file for more information.

chrissloey/ja_serializer