Question

I have an API with many urls like:

 /users/profile -> GET the currently connected user 
 /users/bestfriend -> GET the currently connected users' best friend (most bestfriend of bestfriends)
 /users/wife -> GET the currently connected users' wife


 /users/friends -> GET the currently connected users' friends
 /users/bestfriends -> GET the currently connected users' best friends
 /users/childrens -> GET the currently connected users' childrens
 /users/neighbours -> GET the currently connected users' neighbours

I’m new to Backbone and i don’t really know if the currently connected user should be fetched as a collection or a simple model for exemple.

I know the current user could be boostrapped like the Backbone doc mention but it’s not the point here, just assume i can’t boostrap the current user model.

---

So how can i redirect my fetches to the API URLs?
Should i provide each time an option like {"operation":"profile"} or {"operation":"friends"}, or modify the collection url before doing the fetch?

Thanks

Answer 1

You have to create several Models and Collections any of them related to one of your URLS.

var Profile = Backbone.Model.extend({
  url: "/users/profile"
});

var BestFriend = Backbone.Model.extend({
  url: "/users/bestfriend"
});

// ...

var Friend = Backbone.Model.extend({});

var Friends = Backbone.Collection.extend({
  model: Friend,
  url: "/users/friends"
});

You also can use Friend as the parent class of BestFriend:

var BestFriend = Friend.extend({
  url: "/users/bestfriend"
});

Or even create a Person class as parent for every person:

var Person = Backbone.Model.extend({});

var Friends = Backbone.Collection.extend({
  model: Person,
  url: "/users/friends"
});

var Profile = Person.extend({
  url: "/users/profile"
});

var BestFriend = Person.extend({
  url: "/users/bestfriend"
});

As you have separate URLS to retrieve the data of everyone of the elements you should make several fetches:

var profile = new Profile();
var bestFriend = new BestFriend();
var friends = new Friends();

profile.fetch();
bestfriend.fetch();
friends.fetch();

You can reference all the elements into your Profile instance with things like this:

var Profile = Person.extend({
  url: "/users/profile",
  initialize: function( opts ){
    this.bestFriend = opt.bestfriend;
    // ...
  }
});

var bestFriend = new BestFriend();
var friends = new Friends();

var profile = new Profile({
  bestfriend: bestfriend
});

There are several approaches to organize the elements, also to listen to events on them, but all this is just a matter of taste, and which architecture you fill more comfortable with.