Backbone.js Dynamic model creation based on JSON received from the server - backbone.js

Question

I am trying to create a backbone client side application. I am receiving a list of json objects from the server on startup that will be a list of the possible tables exposed from the server, with their structure. E.g. Customers, Orders, Invoices, Employees
I want to create the models, collections and views dynamically based on the data I receive from the server.
Only when I receive the json on load will I know what the models should be and what the relationships between the models should be.
E.g. Customers structure might be Id, CustomerName, Address, Contact Numbers.
Order Structure might be Id, CustomerId, OrderDate, Amount
etc
By building Models, collections, views, controllers dynamically, I could in theory on startup point at another server who might give me a totally different set of tables e.g. : Movies, Actors etc.. with their structures.
Also, if additional fields are added I don't have to change the client side code again. E.g. Customer table might include a new field called ContactPerson
Please assist me as all the examples I saw on backbone is all based on statically defining the models on the client side up front. So create a model and collections and views for Customers, Orders, Invoices, Employees etc. etc.
Best wishes,
Andy

Answer 1

As already mentioned in the comments, Backbone models are dynamic by nature. So this is perfectly valid for example:
// A example dataset, this could be returned as JSON from the server
var jsonDataA = [
{
name: "Foo",
title: "Bar"
},
{
name: "a",
title: "b"
}
],
// A different example dataset
jsonDataB = [
{
make: "X",
model: "Y"
},
{
make: "Z",
model: "ZZ"
}
],
MyModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
/* Empty Model definition */
}),
MyCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
model: MyModel
}),
collection = new MyCollection();
collection.reset(jsonDataA);
console.log(collection.models);
collection.reset(jsonDataB);
console.log(collections.models);
Here I have reused the same Collection and Model definition to store completely different datasets.

Answer 2

One part is the raw data, the other part is its relations. You need to transport the metadata also, which contains the types and their relations. Model attributes will be populated automatically.
From your metadata a simple object can be constructed, where the keys describe one entity, for example:
var entites = {};
entities["Customer"] = Backbone.Model.extend({
/* Model definition based on metadata */
});
var parametersFromServer = {name: "John Doe"};
var customer = new entities["Customer"](parametersFromServer);
For building relations I would recommend using BackboneRelational plugin.