Question

I have a model for languages and i want to get all the languages as json but the json output looks as follows

[{“language”:{“created_at”:null,”id”:1,”language”:”English”,”updated_at”:null}},{“language”:{“created_at”:null,”id”:2,”language”:”Swedish”,”updated_at”:null}},{“language”:{“created_at”:null,”id”:3,”language”:”German”,”updated_at”:null}},{“language”:{“created_at”:null,”id”:4,”language”:”French”,”updated_at”:null}},{“language”:{“created_at”:null,”id”:5,”language”:”spanish”,”updated_at”:null}},{“language”:{“created_at”:null,”id”:6,”language”:”dutch”,”updated_at”:null}},{“language”:{“created_at”:”2012-12-03T05:01:18Z”,”id”:7,”language”:”Tamil”,”updated_at”:”2012-12-03T05:01:18Z”}}]

but i want to make this as

{“language”:[{“created_at”:null,”id”:1,”language”:”English”,”updated_at”:null},{“created_at”:null,”id”:2,”language”:”Swedish”,”updated_at”:null},{“created_at”:null,”id”:3,”language”:”German”,”updated_at”:null},{“created_at”:null,”id”:4,”language”:”French”,”updated_at”:null},{“created_at”:null,”id”:5,”language”:”spanish”,”updated_at”:null},{“created_at”:null,”id”:6,”language”:”dutch”,”updated_at”:null},{“created_at”:null,”id”:7,”language”:”Tamil”,”updated_at”:null} ] }

Update

def index
 @languages = Language.all
 respond_to do |format|
   format.json { render json: @languages}
 end
end

update 2

    class Language < ActiveRecord::Base
        ActiveRecord::Base.include_root_in_json = false
        has_and_belongs_to_many :users 
    end

Answer 1

I believe this should work:

format.json { render json: { "language" => @languages.as_json(:root => false) }.to_json }

What this does it to convert the @languages array into an array of JSON-formatted hash models with no root keys (using as_json), then wraps the result in a hash with a root key “language”, and convert that hash into a JSON-formatted string with to_json. (See the docs for details on including or not including a root node using as_json.)

For example, with a model Post:

posts = Post.all
#=> [#<Post id: 1, name: "foo", title: "jkl", content: "some content", created_at: "2012-11-22 01:05:46", updated_at: "2012-11-22 01:05:46">]

# convert to array of hashes with no root keys
posts.as_json(root: false)
#=> [{"content"=>"some content", "created_at"=>Thu, 22 Nov 2012 01:05:46 UTC +00:00, "id"=>1, "name"=>"foo", "title"=>"jkl", "updated_at"=>Thu, 22 Nov 2012 01:05:46 UTC +00:00}]

# add root back to collection:
{ "post" => posts.as_json(root: false) }
#=> {"post"=>[{"content"=>"some content", "created_at"=>Thu, 22 Nov 2012 01:05:46 UTC +00:00, "id"=>1, "name"=>"foo", "title"=>"jkl", "updated_at"=>Mon, 03 Dec 2012 09:41:42 UTC +00:00}]}

# convert to JSON-formatted string
{ "post" => posts.as_json(root: false) }.to_json    
#=> "{\"post\":[{\"content\":\"some content\",\"created_at\":\"2012-11-22T01:05:46Z\",\"id\":1,\"name\":\"foo\",\"title\":\"jkl\",\"updated_at\":\"2012-12-03T09:43:37Z\"}]}"