npm install rest-serializer --save
Here's a basic example of serializing an array of post objects with their comments included.
serialize('posts', posts, { sideload: { name: 'comments' } })
// output
{ posts: [ { title: 'test post', comments: [24] } ],
comments: [ { id: 24, content: 'hello world' } ] }
You can also specify to delete specific attributes from your objects. Here's an example with users.
var users = [{email: '[email protected]', password: 'foobar'}]
serialize('users', { without: 'password' })
serialize('users', { without: ['password', 'token'] })
//output
{users: [{email: '[email protected]']}
If you're side loading a singular association, such as a user that belongs to a post, then you need to specify the plural version. Here's an example:
var user = {id: 2, email: '[email protected]'}
var post = {title: 'test post', user: user}
serialize('post', post, { sideload: {name: 'user', plural: 'users' } })
//output
{ post: { title: 'test post', user: 2 },
users: [{id: 2, email: '[email protected]'}] }
Here's an example with a more complex use case.
serialize('users', { without: 'password',
sideload: [{name: 'posts', key: 'pid', without: 'author',
sideload: [{name: 'comments', key: 'cid', without: 'author'}] }] })
//output
{ users: [{email: '[email protected]', posts: [1, 2]}],
posts: [{pid: 1, comments: [1]}, {pid: 2, comments: [1, 2]}],
comments: [{cid: 1}, {cid: 2}] }
In this example, we're serializing a users array, but including the related
posts and post comments. Since the primary key for these records isn't id, we
specify a key. This key is used to generate the id array that ties the
side loaded posts and comments to their parent.