Class DS.JSONSerializer

Ember Data 2.0 Serializer:

In Ember Data a Serializer is used to serialize and deserialize records when they are transferred in and out of an external source. This process involves normalizing property names, transforming attribute values and serializing relationships.

By default, Ember Data uses and recommends the JSONAPISerializer.

JSONSerializer is useful for simpler or legacy backends that may not support the http://jsonapi.org/ spec.

For example, given the following User model and JSON payload:

app/models/user.js
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import DS from 'ember-data';

export default DS.Model.extend({
  friends: DS.hasMany('user'),
  house: DS.belongsTo('location'),

  name: DS.attr('string')
});
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{
  id: 1,
  name: 'Sebastian',
  friends: [3, 4],
  links: {
    house: '/houses/lefkada'
  }
}

JSONSerializer will normalize the JSON payload to the JSON API format that the Ember Data store expects.

You can customize how JSONSerializer processes its payload by passing options in the attrs hash or by subclassing the JSONSerializer and overriding hooks:

  • To customize how a single record is normalized, use the normalize hook.
  • To customize how JSONSerializer normalizes the whole server response, use the normalizeResponse hook.
  • To customize how JSONSerializer normalizes a specific response from the server, use one of the many specific normalizeResponse hooks.
  • To customize how JSONSerializer normalizes your id, attributes or relationships, use the extractId, extractAttributes and extractRelationships hooks.

The JSONSerializer normalization process follows these steps:

  • normalizeResponse - entry method to the serializer.
  • normalizeCreateRecordResponse - a normalizeResponse for a specific operation is called.
  • normalizeSingleResponse|normalizeArrayResponse - for methods like createRecord we expect a single record back, while for methods like findAll we expect multiple records back.
  • normalize - normalizeArray iterates and calls normalize for each of its records while normalizeSingle calls it once. This is the method you most likely want to subclass.
  • extractId | extractAttributes | extractRelationships - normalize delegates to these methods to turn the record payload into the JSON API format.