ActiveModel Serailizers, how can I load it and why do I need to?

rubyonrails-talk
1

Noobie here.

The gist of my problem is this. If I move from serializer file from app/serializers/ to app/models/ then everything works fine. My JSON API will output my data according to my serializer. However, if I remove the copy from the app/models/ directory... it no longer works and goes back to Rails default JSON output.

What do I need to do to include my serializer file in app/serializers/?

**/app/serializers/item_serializer.rb**

    class ItemSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer       attributes :id, :name     end

**/app/controllers/items_controller.rb**

    class ItemsController < ApplicationController       respond_to :json

      def index         items = Item.all         respond_with ({ success: :true, items: items }.as_json)       end

      def show         @item = Item.find_by_id(params[:id])         if @item           render json: @item, serializer: ItemSerializer         else           render json: { success: :false, error: "Could not find item."}, status: :not_found         end       end     end

Do I HAVE TO have my serializers in /app/models by default. Why would ActiveModel Serializers default generating a new serializer then to the /app/serializers directory. How do I let my controller know about my serializer?

2

I’m not sure exactly what you are trying to do, but with Rails 4, but most of it is unnecessary and is handled automatically unless there’s a twist I’m not seeing here. serialization is now automatic as is responding with an error if the item isn’t found. Unless there’s a unique aspect to what you’re doing, you don’t need your own serializer. All you should need is the following:

class ItemsController < ApplicationController

respond_to :json

def index

@items = Item.all

respond_with(@items)

end

def show

@item = Item.find(params[:id])

respond_with(@item)

end

end