Jsonify-Rails — Jsonify templates for Rails views

Jsonify is to JSON as Builder is to XML.

gem install jsonify-rails

Jsonify-Rails provides a Rails 3 template handler allowing you to create view templates using Jsonify. Any template with a .jsonify will be handled by Rails.

The Jsonify template handler exposes a Jsonify::Builder instance to your template with the json variable:

json.hello do
  json.world "Jsonify is Working!"
end

Just like with any other template, your Jsonify template will have access to any instance variables that are exposed through the controller.

For optimum performance, Jsonify outputs the generated JSON string in plain format -- no newlines, or spaces -- this is best for production. However, if you want "pretty" output, you can configure Jsonify by adding the following configuration line to application.rb.

config.jsonify_format = :pretty

You can use partials from Jsonify views, and you can create Jsonify partials. How your Jsonify template uses a partial depends on how the information the partial returns is structured. Keep in mind that any paritial, be it a Jsonify template, erb, or anything else, always a returns its result as a string.

Any Jsonify partial — that is, the file has a .jsonify extension — will return, by design, a string that is valid JSON. It will represent either a JSON object,wrapped in curly braces ( {} ), or a JSON array, wrapped in square brackets ( [] ).

To incorporate such a value into a Jsonify template, use the ingest! method.

ingest! assumes that the value it receives is valid JSON representation. It parses the JSON into a Jsonify object graph, and then adds it to the current Jsonify builder.

Let's assume this this is your main template, index.jsonify:

json << 1
json.ingest! (render :partial=>'my_partial')

From the first line, you can tell that an array will be created as this line uses the append operator. On the second line, a partial is being added to the builder. Note that you cannot simply place render :partial ... on a line by itself as you can do with other templates like erb and haml. You have to explicitly tell Jsonify to add it to the builder.

Let's say that the partial file, _my_partial.jsonify, is as follows:

json << 3
json << 4

This json variable in this partial is a separate distinct Jsonify::Builder instance from the json variable in the main template.

Note: Figure out if a the json instance can be passed to the Jsonify partial. It would make things easier and we wouldn't have to ingest the result.

This partial results in the following string:

"[3,4]"

The ingest! method will actually parse this string back into a Jsonify-based object, and adds it to the builder's current state. The resulting output will be:

"[1,[3,4]]"

You can also use output from non-Jsonify templates (e.g. erb); just remember that the output from a template is always a string and that you have to tell the builder how to include the result of the partial.

For example, suppose you have the partial _today.erb with the following content:

<%= Date.today %>

You can then incorporate this partial into your Jsonify template just as you would any other string value:

json << 1
json << {:date => (render :partial => 'today')}

renders ...

[1,{"date":"2011-07-30"}]

• Argonaut
• JSON Builder
• RABL
• Representative
• Tokamak

This project is released under the MIT license.

• Bill Siggelkow

• Trym Skaar