backbone.ditto

A simple abstraction layer over Backbone Models and Collections

Backbone.Ditto is an easier way to allow models to define CRUD operations.

To facilitate this, models can have a methodUrl hash defined on them.

The method url hash can contain up to four methods, create, read, put, and delete. These map to the HTTP methods CREATE, GET, PUT, and DELETE, respectively.

***Nesting Ditto Models can also be nested. This can be done as a client-side way to implement relationships in the database. If you do this, simply set the model as a property on the model.

  var usr = new UserModel({name: 'Billy'});
  var img = new PhotoModel({src: 'http://example.com/billy.jpeg'});

  user.set("avatar", img);

When models are sent to the server, they are in a hash in the form of

{
  "className": "User",
  "attributes": {
    "name": "Billy",
    "avatar": "..."
  }
}

Any nested model which matches this format is considered to be a refernce

And for nested models, they work as you would naturally expect

{
  "className": "User",
  "attributes": {
    "name": "Billy",
    "avatar": {
      "className": "Photo",
      "attributes": {
        "src": "http://example.com/billy.jpeg"
      }
    }
  }
}

If data comes down in this same format, it will be parse into fully-featured Backbone models. In order to facilitate this, however, your models must implement the getModelDefinitions method. This method must return a reference to a Backbone Model definition to be constructed when given a className string.