Question

I have a simple question about Backbone.js’ get and set functions.

1) With the code below, how can I ‘get’ or ‘set’ obj1.myAttribute1 directly?

Another question:

2) In the Model, aside from the defaults object, where can/should I declare my model’s other attributes, such that they can be accessed via Backbone’s get and set methods?

var MyModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
    defaults: {
        obj1 : {
            "myAttribute1" : false,
            "myAttribute2" : true,
        }
    }
})

var MyView = Backbone.View.extend({
    myFunc: function(){
        console.log(this.model.get("obj1"));
        //returns the obj1 object
        //but how do I get obj1.myAttribute1 directly so that it returns false?
    }
});

I know I can do:

this.model.get("obj1").myAttribute1;

but is that good practice?

Answer 1

While this.model.get("obj1").myAttribute1 is fine, it’s a bit problematic because then you might be tempted to do the same type of thing for set, i.e.

this.model.get("obj1").myAttribute1 = true;

But if you do this, you won’t get the benefits of Backbone models for myAttribute1, like change events or validation.

A better solution would be to never nest POJSOs (“plain old JavaScript objects”) in your models, and instead nest custom model classes. So it would look something like this:

var Obj = Backbone.Model.extend({
    defaults: {
        myAttribute1: false,
        myAttribute2: true
    }
});

var MyModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
    initialize: function () {
        this.set("obj1", new Obj());
    }
});

Then the accessing code would be

var x = this.model.get("obj1").get("myAttribute1");

but more importantly the setting code would be

this.model.get("obj1").set({ myAttribute1: true });

which will fire appropriate change events and the like. Working example here: http://jsfiddle.net/g3U7j/