nthalk / emd

Emd

An opinionated convention over configuration EmberJs data modeling framework.

Prescribed Format

The typical (coffee) JSON format that I would suggest looks like this:

model_name:
  url: "/link/to/resource/route"    # Required
  id: modelid                       # Required
  under_score_names: "with values!"
  created_at: "date string"         # Optional
  errors: {key: ["problem"]}        # Optional
  links:                            # Recommended
    relatedmodel: "/link/to/related/model?with=relevant&conditions"

Prescribed API Structure

Every API should have a root object, that provides discoverable urls through a nested links object.

api:
  url: "/api"
  version: "0.1.0"
  links:
    users: "/api/users"
    articles: "/api/articles"
    comments: "/api/comments"

Example?

Here is the coffee script to deal with the above api structure

App.Api = EMD.Model.extend
  url: "/api"
  users: EMD.hasMany 'App.User', urlBinding: 'links.users'
  articles: EMD.hasMany articles: 'App.Article'
  comments: EMD.hasMany 'App.Comment', urlBinding: 'links.comments'

App.User = EMD.Model.extend
  email: EMD.attr "email"
  phoneNumber: EMD.attr "phone_number"
  comments: EMD.hasMany 'App.Comment', urlBinding: 'links.comments'

api = App.Api.create()
users = api.get "users"
users.load().then ->
  first_user = users.get "firstObject"

new_user = users.get "nextNew"
new_user.save().then (ok = ->
  console.log "saved user!"
  next_new_user = users.get "nextNew"
  next_new_user != new_user # true
), (er = ->
  console.log "errors!", new_user.get 'errors'
)

Attribute Types

Currently there is support for

EMD.attr.belongsTo foreign_key: 'Parent.Model'
EMD.attr.hasMany 'Child.Model', urlBinding: 'link.children' # Which is the same as
EMD.attr.hasMany children: 'Child.Model'
EMD.attr.moment 'key_name'
EMD.attr 'key_name'
EMD.attr.object 'key_name'

Links and Urls?

Links represent the state of all models of the same type. Url's represent the resource location of a specific model or collection.

Whenever a Certain.Model is updated, created, or destroyed, the Certain.Model.link is updated and triggers reloads on collections that rely on that link.

RecordArrays, Relations?

RecordArrays are arrays that contain a single model type, url, and link.

Relations are modified Ember.Array objects that lazy load their contents and can extend their parent Relation's query.

They can also be used to create new models.

Testing

npm install -g cake
npm install
cake test         # Headless
cake test:server  # Livereload

Pull requests are welcome!