ActiveFacet

ActiveFacet is a Rails plugin that enables custom as_json serialization intended for APIs. It is designed for speed, and is orders of magnitude faster than jbuilder.

The framework supports:

• fields - define the fields you want to serialize, by resource type
• field groups - configure sets of fields you want to refer to by alias, by resource type
• versioning - describe serialization of resources by version, with automatic fallback
• caching - optomize performance by composing documents from smaller documents
• nested resources - serialize models and associations with one call chain
• filters - restrict records from associations with custom scopes

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'active_facet'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install active_facet

Configuration

And then execute:

$ rails g active_facet:install

To add an initializer to your application.

Usage

Parent.limit(2).as_json(af_opts: {
  version: "2.3.8",
  cache_force: true,
  fields: [:basic, :extended, { children: [:minimal, :extension] }]
  field_overrides: {
    parent: [:id, :children, :foo, :bar],
    child: [:fizz, :buzz]
  },
  filters: {
    single_parent: true,
    with_children_parent: 3,
    active: :disabled
  }
})
# =>
[ {
    id: 1,
    created_at: 2343242342,
    updated_at: "2014-03-23 00:23:32",
    weight: 2432252,
    children: [ {
      fizz: 'care bear'
    }, {
      fizz: 'hello',
      buzz: 'world'
    } ]
  }, {
    id: 2,
    created_at: 2343242777,
    updated_at: "2014-04-24 01:34:25",
    children: [ {
      fizz: 'tamato'
    } ]
  }
}

Defaults

All options are optional

:version

Version of serializer to marshal resources with. Defaults to:

"1.0"

:cache_force

Force serializers to ignore cached documents. Defaults to:

false

:fields

Attributes to marshal. See Field Sets. Defaults to:

:basic

:field_overrides

Attributes to marshal, by resource type. See Field Sets. Defaults to:

{}

:filters

Filters to apply when marshalling associations. See Field Sets. Defaults to:

{}

Serializer DSL

class ParentSerializer
  include ActiveFacet::Serializer::Base

  # TRANSFORMS

  # Transforms rename attributes and apply custom serializers to attributes data.

  # Renames parent.kid_trackings to json['trackings'] on parent.as_json...
  transform :trackings,               from: :kid_trackings

  # Renames json['trackings'] to parent.kid_trackings on parent.from_hash...:
  transform :trackings,               to: :kid_trackings

  # Renames parent.kid_trackings to json['trackings'] on parent.as_json... & parent.from_hash...
  transform :trackings,               as: :kid_trackings

  # Converts json['created_at'] with TimeCustomAttributeSerializer on parent.as_json... & parent.from_hash...
  transform :created_at,              with: :time

  # Renames json['created_at'] to parent.data['weight'] on parent.as_json... & parent.from_hash...
  transform :weight,                  within: :data

  # Renames json['weighed'] to parent.data['weighed_at'] using TimeCustomAttributeSerializer converter on parent.as_json... & parent.from_hash...
  transform :weighed,                 within: :data, with: :time, as: :wieghed_at



  # EXTENSIONS

  # Extensions decorate the json response when attribute data is not directly accessible from the resource.

  # Decorates json['free_shipping_minimum'] on parent.as_json...
  extension :free_shipping_minimum



  # FIELD SETS

  # Field sets indicate the desired fields to serialize for a given resource type.
  # Field sets can be aliased, and reference aliases, recursively.
  # Field sets can reference Field Sets defined for ActiveRecord Association resource types in a hierarchical structure

  # NOTE:: make sure to define :basic and :minimal Field Sets for all resources
  # :basic is implicitely added to all Field Sets that do not inclue :minimal during serialization

  # Arrays map to collections
  expose :timestamps,                 as: [:id, :created_at, :updated_at]
  expose :basic,                      as: [:timestamps, :name]

  # Hashes map to relations and the Field Sets declared on the relation
  expose :deep,                       as: { trackings: :basic }

  # Composite structures can be formed from Symbols, Arrays, and Hashes
  expose :deep_basic,                 as: [:timestamps, :basic, { trackings: [:basic, :extended] }]



  # EXPOSE_TIMESTAMPS

  # expose_timestamps is equivalent to
  # transform :created_at, with: :time
  # transform :updated_at, with: :time
  # expose :timestamps, as: [:id, :created_at, :updated_at]
  expose_timestamps

end

Development

After checking out the repo, run ./bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rspec spec to run the tests. You can also run ./bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment. To work with an interactive prompt including a dummy host application, run bin/rails c or rails c from the spec/dummy directory.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

To push or update an unreleased version, without pushing the .gem file, run bin/update_version.

To configure a host application to use a local version of the gem without modifying the host application's Gemfile run from the root directory of the host application bundle config local.active_facet /path/to/local/git/repository

To unconfigure a local version of the gem, run bundle config --delete local.active_facet

Roadmap

Available at /blob/master/ROADMAP.md

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/honest/active_facet. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.