Question

I have a scenario where the data being manipulated on the client is presented and interacted with in a different way than it is represented on the server.

Consider the following event resource returned from the server.

{
  "id": 123,
  "start_at": 1331336004906,
  "end_at": 1331337704906
}

And the following template for editing:

<form>
  <!-- Notice how date and time are separated in the interface -->
  <input type="text" name="start_date" value="{{start_date}}" />
  <input type="text" name="start_time" value="{{start_time}}" />

  <!-- Instead of asking for an end date/time, we ask for the duration -->
  <input type="text" name="duration" value="{{duration}}" />

  <input type="submit" />
</form>

How would I go about treating start_date, start_time, and duration as attributes in my Backbone model without sending them to the server? Am I supposed to modify .toJSON()?

Answer 1

Your model should correspond as closely as possible to what you have server side. So stick with start_at and end_at. That will greatly simplify your sync() operations.

On your edit form’s View, you can:

1. Compute start_date, start_time, duration through simple functions and call them in the template.
2. Convert to start_at and end_at on submitting.