Ember array serialization - arrays

Question

I'm adding objects to an array property of a model, then saving it. When I look at the outgoing request, the property in question is always an empty array.
My custom serializer (extending Ember.RESTSerializer) has this:
DS.ArrayTransform = DS.Transform.extend(
{
deserialize: function(serialized)
{
return (Ember.typeOf(serialized) == "array") ? serialized : [];
},
serialize: function(deserialized)
{
var type = Ember.typeOf(deserialized);
if (type == 'array')
{
return [{foo:'bar'}];
// return deserialized;
}
else if (type == 'string')
{
return deserialized.split(',').map(function(item)
{
return item.trim();
});
}
else
{
return [];
}
}
});
App.register("transform:array", DS.ArrayTransform);
As you can see I've tried passing back an arbitrary array with an object in it, but even then the array always comes out as empty. In the app I create the record like this:
var post = this.store.createRecord('explorePost', {
title: content.get('title'),
text: content.get('text'),
postDate: content.get('postdate'),
publishDate: content.get('publishDate'),
published: content.get('published'),
postType: content.get('postType'),
link: content.get('link,'),
projectDownloads: [],
// projectDownloads: this.model.get('projectDownloads'),
projectLinks: content.get('projectLinks'),
});
then add the objects like this:
this.model.get('projectDownloads').forEach(function (_download) {
console.log('pushing download', _download);
post.get('projectDownloads').pushObject(_download);
});
I can confirm that at time of saving, the post object has a projectDownloads array with one object in it. No matter what I do I can't seem to get it to spit out the contents when it saves. It's definitely going into the custom serializer, and detects it as an array, but you can see something else seems to be overriding it.
Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? My model setup is below:
App.ExplorePost = DS.Model.extend(
{
title: DS.attr('string'),
text: DS.attr('string'),
link: DS.attr('string'),
postDate: DS.attr('momentdate'),
publishDate: DS.attr('momentdate'),
user: DS.belongsTo('user',{async:true}),
postType: DS.attr('string'),
activity: DS.belongsTo('activity',{ inverse: 'explorePost', async:true}),
comments: DS.hasMany('comment',{ inverse: 'explorePost', async: true }),
// projectDownloads: DS.hasMany('projectDownload',{ inverse: 'explorePost'}),
projectDownloads: DS.attr('array'),
// projectLinks: DS.hasMany('projectLink',{ inverse: 'explorePost'}),
projectLinks: DS.attr('string'),
published: DS.attr('boolean', {defaultValue: true}),
// tags: DS.hasMany('tag')
sortdate: function()
{
var datestr = Ember.isEmpty(this.get('postDate')) ? '' : moment(this.get('postDate')).format('YYYYMMDDHHmm');
var fn = (datestr + '____________').slice(0, 12);
return fn;
}.property('postDate')
});

Answer 1

There's no built in DS.attr('array') and a naive implementation would probably not know how to serialize ember-data objects found inside. Did you intend to leave that in there? If you swap it back to the relationships you've commented out and change projectDownloads to work with the promise:
this.model.get('projectDownloads').then(function(downloads) {
downloads.forEach(function(_download){
post.get('projectDownloads').pushObject(_download);
});
});
This should work jsut fine. I put together something nearly identical the other day. http://emberjs.jsbin.com/zolani/3/edit?html,css,js,output

Answer 2

if you array not contain complex object, like array of string, you can use DS.attr(), it will work.