I'm starting to implement backbone.js on a new app, however, the API I'm using it is not kind of restful, so I want to know if I can still use some similar methods, for sample:
Let's say I have a trivial scenario where I need among other options to delete users, however each option has its own controller, so I trigger them like this:
fetch : FetchController.php
Update : DeleteController.php?data={'id':'x'}
So my view would look like this:
var UserEditView = Backbone.View.extend({
events: {
'submit .delete-form': 'deleteUser'
},
//.... other methods
deleteUser: function(event) {
//user is a instance of my User Collection
this.user.destroy({
//here is where I point my question
});
}
});
Let's say all my controllers are called via Post Method, so I don't have the change to send a Delete Method to destroy... my question is, can I create a own destroy method? or at least configure it to call an custom controller? so I can do the same to create and edit records?
Any help would be really appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
You should definitely use $.ajax options override it with attributes url, method and data
model.fetch({
url: 'FetchController.php'
});
model.destroy({
url: 'DeleteController.php',
method: 'POST',
data: "id=x"
});
You may also override fetch and destroy method inside your model to do not use this every time in views.
Or even override Backbone.sync method to support your backend services. Here is a link to related question.
Related
I've really be trying to wrap my head around this as much as possible, but having a very difficult time doing so. Maybe I'm missing the obvious.
Given a typical REST API (with an idempotent update method and a create method):
http://www.domain.com/api/clients GET // returns all clients
http://www.domain.com/api/clients POST // create a new client
http://www.domain.com/api/clients/:id GET // returns single client
http://www.domain.com/api/clients/:id PUT // updates a single client - idempotent
http://www.domain.com/api/clients/:id DELETE // delete single client
If I create a standard resource with the following URL:
Client = $resource("http://www.domain.com/api/clients/:id")
Then I automatically get (where Client is the $resource and client is the returned entity):
Client.get()
Client.query()
Client.save()
client.$save()
client.$remove/delete()
The problem I have is by default there is no PUT method to save (typically used to identify idempotent updates).
Am I misunderstanding something or is this a deficiency in Angular's API? I would have expected the $save() to use a PUT and not a POST. The way it is currently structured, I have to create my own $update() method definition and then rely on the developer not to accidentally use the $save() method.
Am I structuring my API incorrectly? Should the REST API be structured differently?
You can simply specify the method in your resource like :
app.factory('someFactory', ['$resource', function($resource) {
return $resource('/api/:id', {
id: '#id'
}, {
update: {
method: 'PUT'
},
get: {
method: 'GET'
}
});
}]);
but I totally agree with $save being an odd verb for create and not update. This guy does too and it looks like he made a way to dual purpose the save by simply extending the object and checking for an id.
What is a good pattern for updating angular data from a ngResource service that has been cached?
I been trawling posts like this one [1]: How to refresh / invalidate $resource cache in AngularJS, but would be good to hear from angular experts on the right approach for this specific (but pretty general) scenario.
I am looking for a general pattern here. Both in understanding and in implementing angular - I am a novice at it.
I have a pretty standard ngResource service that has a very standard query method, and a custom put method update.
myServices.factory('ThingsService', [
'$resource',
function ($resource) {
return $resource('/api/things/:id', { id: '#id' }, {
query: { method: 'GET', isArray: true, cache: true },
update: {method: 'PUT', cache: true },
});
}]);
I am using it from a controller like this:
$scope.things = ThingsService.query(function (x) {
// must assign these only once data is loaded
$scope.allCount = x.Things.length;
$scope.incomingCount = $filter('filter')(x.Things, { State: 'incoming' }).length;
});
So far so good. The data is returned just fine, and it renders nicely in a dashboard view.
We support in-place-editing and the user can edit the data right there in the dashboard list.
First take a shadow copy of the thing using angular.copy(...) so that we can support buffering of the changes for the user. (just like a dialog box does for a user). Then when they confirm their changes, we call with the shadow copy:
ThingsService.update({ id: currentThing.Id }, { Data: currentThing.Data }, function () {
//TODO: now, if this PUT succeeds,
//I want to update the value of $scope.things array to reflect the changes,
//without going to back to the server for the whole array.
});
This correctly PUTS the changes to the server, which returns an updated thing, but the dashboard view which is bound to the query method is not updated auto-magically. Was kind of hoping angular and the ThingsService and its cache would take care of that for me somehow, you know by updating the cached data. Since the service should know that I just updated one of the items that the service serves up.
So to avoid going all the way back to the server we have told the ThingsService to cache its results, which is a good start. But how are you supposed to update the changed thing in the cached data?
Is there a standard pattern for this kind of update with a ngResource service?
Preferably I wouldn't have to mess with the cache directly. I should not even care that it is cached or how. I just want $scope.things to reflect the posted changes changes.
I use Rails 4 + backbone in my application.
Everything is good. New model is created in backbone and saved by calling:
newItem.save(null, {success: this.sendSuccess, error: this.sendError});
However, implementing a new feature I need to change one of the model attributes. What I see that a PUT action is fired just before sendSuccess is called, which I want to avoid.
Moreover, the url is very strange. Save action calls this url:
Remote Address:127.0.0.1:3000
Request URL:http://www.lvh.me:3000/api/user/1/tickets
Request Method:POST
and then, after server return the json with the modified attribute, backbone calls this url:
Remote Address:127.0.0.1:3000
Request URL:http://www.lvh.me:3000/api/user/1/tickets
Request Method:PUT
without the ticket id!
Is there any way to prevent backbone fire an update when server return the model with different attributes?
The problem was that I had a listener in my model exactly on the column that server changed:
initialize: function() {
this.on("change:status", this.statusChanged, this);
},
Now I had to figure out why the update url does not contain the model id.
I figured out that when I first created the model, from some reasons I couldn't assign it to the collection, so in order to save it I assign the url manually:
var newTicket = new MyApp.Ticket( ticketData );
newTicket.url = this.collection.url();
Now, the bug is that url is a function, and I simply overrided it!
I changed the code to:
newTicket.urlRoot = this.collection.url();
and now it works.
Backbone will always perform PUT if your model has an id attribute setted. Which makes sense when using RESTfull.
Be sure that you're really SAVING(new model withoud an ID) a data to server instead of UPDATING(model with an ID) to server.
I want to call save on a Backbone model and have it write data to the server, but not update the client. How do I do this?
To clarify: when Backbone saves a model, it sends all the data to the server, and then retrieves the data from the server and updates it on the client. This second step is what I want not to happen.
To clarify further: The model ('parent' model) has an attribute which is itself a model ('child' model); when it's saved to the server, this child model is converted to JSON. When the parent model updates after the save, the attribute that previously contained a reference to the child model is replaced with the parsed JSON object of the child model that was saved. This is what I need not to happen.
When the data is initially pulled from the server, the parent model "reconstitutes" that object into an appropriate child model, but this is an expensive process and there is no reason to re-do it every time save fires on the parent model, since the child model will never change.
It sounds like you do not want to parse your model when you receive the response from the server on a model.save
You can try something such as:
model.save(attributes,{
success: function() { ... },
parse : false // This will be passed to your parse function as an option
});
You would have to set-up your parse function in your corresponding model as follows:
parse: function(resp,options) {
// don't update model with the server response if {parse:false} is passed to save
if (options && !options.parse) return;
/ ... rest of your parse code ... /
Backbone currently defaults options.parse to true. Here is a short-discussion on the topic.
As discussed in that thread, perhaps you want to consider why you do not want want to update the server response to the client. There may be a cleaner way to achieve the results you desire.
Depending on how/what your server setup is, all you really have to do is issue a regular AJAX request. This is exactly what backbone does in the background so you'll just bypass the client side logic.
You could do this with native JavaScript, but I'm fairly sure you have some other library in use that can make things much easier.
For the completeness of this answer, I'll give an example with jQuery:
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "http://same.as.your.model",
data: { "the" : "model" },
dataType: "JSON",
success: function(){
// once the request has returned
}
});
The $.ajax function also has some additional functionality, and you can read about it in the jQuery docs.
On client you mean Views? If you want to save your model but not render your views which happens since save will trigger a change event, you should call save with option silent:true, or set a custom option like dontchange:true when calling save and check it in when handling change. I prefer the custom option, because silent has side effects (at least in my version of backbone 1.0.0)
a little code:
when you save:
model.save({},{dontchange: true});
you install your event listeners in the view:
this.listenTo(model, 'change', function(model, options){
if (options.dontchange)
return;
this.render();
});
I ran into same problem. model.save(attrs,{patch:true, parse:false}) really did not invoke parse method but model was still merged with server response.
It is not elegant, but this worked for me:
model.clone().save(attrs,{patch:true})
I believe it's best to avoid this situation by clean REST api design.
What is backbone's convention/best practice for retrieving data from a RESTful web service, based on data entered in a form?
From what I understand I can register a click observer in the view, so when the form submit button is clicked the view will retrieve the data from the form. But I'm unclear on whether I execute the AJAX call from the view, model, or router.
Essentially, I'm unclear as to which of the following is convention:
Have the view get the parameters, execute the AJAX call and then pass the returned JSON to the model
Have the view get the parameters and pass them to the model and have it execute the AJAX call and retrieve the data from the web service
Have the view get the parameters and pass them to a router and have it execute the AJAX call and populate the appropriate model and view accordingly?
NOTE: I need to submit search criteria to a RESTful Web Service, which expects the data to be POSTed; correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like I can use: fetch or save. Should I create a function within the model that uses $.ajax({...}) to post the params and receive the JSON data?
The backbone.js models are already setup to do RESTful requests. Method 2 is what you want to do.
The only thing you have to setup in the model is a URL:
MyModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
url: 'http://path/to/my/RESTful/service'
});
MyView = Backbone.View.extend({
events: {
'submit #myform': 'saveToModel'
},
initialize: function() {
// ...
},
saveToModel: function() {
// this triggers a RESTFul POST (or PUT) request to the URL specified in the model
this.model.save({
'foo': 'Foo!',
'bar': 'Bar!'
});
}
});
Bind the submit event to the form id or the div id, not the button id.