How to convert Backbone fetched object to proper Handlebars JSON Object? - json

Question

Currently I have an issue with getting back a proper JSON object I'm fetching with Backbone fetch() and putting it into a Handlebars template.
See below my code, I have made a ugly workaround for now to test my Backend API
When converting to JSON with *.toJSON(), it just adds an extra object in-between and I don't need this extra object
Object [0]
--> books
----> Object [0]
------> Array of book
--------> book
--------> cities
JSON
{
"books": [
{
"book": 00001,
"cities": [
"TEST"
]
},
{
"book": 00002,
"cities": [
"TEST"
]
},
{
"book": 00003,
"cities": [
"TEST"
]
}
],
"more": true
}
JavaScript
var Book = Backbone.Model.extend({
default: {
book: 0,
cities: ["TEST1", "TEST2", "TEST3"]
},
url: function () {
return ".list.json";
}
});
var Books = Backbone.Collection.extend({
model: Book,
url: ".list.json"
});
var BooksView = Backbone.View.extend({
initialize: function(){
_.bindAll(this, 'render');
this.collection = new Books();
this.collection.fetch();
this.source = $('.e-books-template').html();
// Use an extern template
this.template = Handlebars.compile(this.source);
var self = this;
this.collection.fetch({
success: function () {
self.render();
},
error: function () {
console.log("ERROR IN BooksView");
}
});
},
render: function() {
var collect = JSON.stringify(this.collection);
collect = collect.slice(1, -1);
var html = this.template($.parseJSON(collect));
this.$el.html(html);
}
});
var booksView = new BooksView({ });
$(document).ready(function(){
booksView.$el = $('.e-books-content');
});

Answer 1

A Backbone collection expects an array of models but your JSON provides an object with the array under a books key. Parse the server response to format the data :
var Books = Backbone.Collection.extend({
model: Book,
url: ".list.json",
parse: function(data) {
return data.books;
}
});
Pass your data to your template via http://backbonejs.org/#Collection-toJSON ,
// directly as an array in your template
var html = this.template(this.collection.toJSON());
// under a books key
var html = this.template({
books: this.collection.toJSON()
});
And a demo http://jsfiddle.net/nikoshr/8jdb13jg/