Question

Is there a better way to update a model with the values in the form before sending it to the database? I would like to do something like this:

    mySave: function () {
        this.model.save($(this.el).find(':input').serializeArray());
    },

The problem is that .serializeArray() returns an array [{key1:"val1"}, {key2:"val2"}], and the backbone.js model.save() is expecting an object {"key1":"val1", "key2":"val2"} as a param.

The back end is asp.net MVC. I’m mentioning this just in case there are better methods to pass this information back to the server.

Currently, I am just iterating through the serialized array and setting each property on the Backbone Model one by one.

Answer 1

I just wrote this: https://github.com/macek/jquery-to-json

See a demo of it working here http://macek.github.com/jquery-to-json

(function($){
    $.fn.toJSON = function(options){

        options = $.extend({}, options);

        var self = this,
            json = {},
            push_counters = {},
            patterns = {
                "validate": /^[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_]*(?:\[(?:\d*|[a-zA-Z0-9_]+)\])*$/,
                "key":      /[a-zA-Z0-9_]+|(?=\[\])/g,
                "push":     /^$/,
                "fixed":    /^\d+$/,
                "named":    /^[a-zA-Z0-9_]+$/
            };


        this.build = function(base, key, value){
            base[key] = value;
            return base;
        };

        this.push_counter = function(key, i){
            if(push_counters[key] === undefined){
                push_counters[key] = 0;
            }
            if(i === undefined){
                return push_counters[key]++;
            }
            else if(i !== undefined && i > push_counters[key]){
                return push_counters[key] = ++i;
            }
        };

        $.each($(this).serializeArray(), function(){

            // skip invalid keys
            if(!patterns.validate.test(this.name)){
                return;
            }

            var k,
                keys = this.name.match(patterns.key),
                merge = this.value,
                reverse_key = this.name;

            while((k = keys.pop()) !== undefined){

                // adjust reverse_key
                reverse_key = reverse_key.replace(new RegExp("\\[" + k + "\\]$"), '');

                // push
                if(k.match(patterns.push)){
                    merge = self.build([], self.push_counter(reverse_key), merge);
                }

                // fixed
                else if(k.match(patterns.fixed)){
                    self.push_counter(reverse_key, k);
                    merge = self.build([], k, merge);
                }

                // named
                else if(k.match(patterns.named)){
                    merge = self.build({}, k, merge);
                }
            }

            json = $.extend(true, json, merge);
        });

        return json;
    };
})(jQuery);