Question

We are returning the following JSON from a ruby code:

{
 "label":"CPU-7",
 "data":[[50,45,38,34]],
 "settings":{
            "seriesDefaults":{
                             "renderer":"$.jqplot.BarRenderer"
                             },
            "axes":{
                   "xaxis":{
                           "renderer":"$.jqplot.CategoryAxisRenderer",
                           "ticks":[50,45,38,34]
                           }
                   }
            }
}

However, “$.jqplot.BarRenderer” is an object and we don’t want it to be returned as string, is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

This doesn’t directly answer your question but gives an alternative. See my note below though if you absolutely must do what you’re wanting

You probably don’t want your ruby code to know anything about your javascript objects. Rather you can maintain some sort of type structure such that if you returned data is of type barChart you can reference it that way. SOmething like:

var chartTypes = {
  barChart: $.jqplot.BarRenderer
}

Then if you returned:

{"settings":{
  "seriesDefaults":{
    "type": "barChart"
  }
}

You can use

chartTypes[settings.seriesDefaults.type]

Again, I’d avoid having your ruby know anything about your javascript objects or how you’re actually rendering the data. Ruby should just provide the data, javascript chooses what to do with it.

note

to get an actual object from your json string, just do

// not recommended!!!
var obj = eval(settings.seriesDefaults.renderer);