Rails - JSON object with an array?

Rails
1

Hello, I’m able to create and send a JSON object like so:

  @mylist << {
    :id => item.id,
    :name => name.id
  }

render :json => { :result => 'success', :mylist => @mylist }

That works great. Problem I’m having now is that I need to include
users which can be 1 or users per item.

  @mylist << {
    :id => item.id,
    :name => name.id,
    :users => item.users
  }

Where item.users contains a list of (user.id, user.name, user.desc).

how do I include an array like users inside a json object? Right now
it is including all the user columns which I don’t need. How can I
specify which columns to include. Also it appears to be breaking the
JSON object, now everything following the first item.users in the JSON
object is:

,{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},
{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{}],“result”:“success”}

Thanks

2

UPDATE

the code above is inside a:

@items.each_with_index do |item, i|
end
Perhaps that is a problem here?

3

On Dec 22, 2010, at 1:28 AM, CuriousNewbie wrote:

On Dec 21, 5:07 pm, CuriousNewbie [email protected] wrote:

users which can be 1 or users per item.
it is including all the user columns which I don’t need. How can I
specify which columns to include. Also it appears to be breaking the
JSON object, now everything following the first item.users in the JSON
object is:

,{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},
{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{}],“result”:“success”}

I think you are running into problems because you are not following
strictly
the MVC pattern.

I assume the code pasted is executed by the controller, correct?
Maybe you should look at the as_json method to define json format from
the model itself.
For example, if Item is a model (inherited from ActiveRecord) and User
is too, you should be fine defining two as_json methods inside the two
models. That should allow you to render the data in the controller with
a
simple:

render :json => @list

If you need more “customization”, you should consider redendering json
via an erb view (leave the controller alone!!! :D).