Question

I need to create a json-array with respect to my data. But in my data model, some of the fields are unnecessary and some of the fields name need to be changed for the json-array.
Therefore I created a simple function to convert one object into a json format that I need to use :

  def testMethod
    {title: self.title, start: self.start_date, end: self.end_date, resource: Resource.find(self.resource_id).name}.to_json
  end

So the output for this json object is:

{:title=>"Test", :start=>Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:25:00 UTC +00:00, :end=>Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:25:00 UTC +00:00, :resource=>"Resource1"}

But when I iterate all of my objects with the following loop:

@calJson   = []
@calendars.each do |cal|
    @calJson.push(cal.testMethod)
end

I’ll have this useless string:

[“{\”title\”:\”Test\”,\”start\”:\”2012-12-27T10:25:00Z\”,\”end\”:\”2012-12-27T10:25:00Z\”,\”resource\”:\”Resource1\”}”,
“{\”title\”:\”ikincii\”,\”start\”:\”2012-12-27T10:25:00Z\”,\”end\”:\”2012-12-27T10:25:00Z\”,\”resource\”:\”Resource2\”}”,
“{\”title\”:\”b da
son\”,\”start\”:\”2012-12-27T10:27:00Z\”,\”end\”:\”2012-12-27T10:27:00Z\”,\”resource\”:\”Resource1\”}”]

Whereas I want something like this:

[
{
title: ‘Lunch 12.15-14.45’,
start: new Date(y, m, d, 12, 15),
end: new Date(y, m, d, 14, 45),

              resource: 'resource1'
          },              
          {
              title: 'Meeting',
              start: new Date(y, m, d, 10, 30),
              end: new Date(y, m, d+4, 11, 00),

              resource: 'resource1'
          } ]

How should I do that ?

Thanks.

Answer 1

To answer your question straight:

 def testMethod
  {title: self.title, start: self.start_date, end: self.end_date, resource: Resource.find(self.resource_id).name}
 end

 @calJson = @calendars.each_with_object([]) {|cal, array| array << cal.testMethod }.to_json

But you have better alternatives: json builders are dedicated to this kind of tasks.