Generating JSON with Rails? - ruby-on-rails

Question

I just need to generate a JSON string that looks something like:
def self.feedback_request(history_event)
#event = history_event.event
#case_tracking_id = history_event.case_tracking_id
#request_type = "feedback"
return "{
"event":#event
"case_tracking_id":#case_tracking_id
"request_type":#request_type
"event_data":historic_event.to_json
}"
end
Does rails have some way to generate JSON strings?

Answer 1

The right way to do it is using the jbuilder which is part of Rails.
so from the documentation:
# app/views/message/show.json.jbuilder
json.content format_content(#message.content)
json.(#message, :created_at, :updated_at)
json.author do
json.name #message.creator.name.familiar
json.email_address #message.creator.email_address_with_name
json.url url_for(#message.creator, format: :json)
end
if current_user.admin?
json.visitors calculate_visitors(#message)
end
json.comments #message.comments, :content, :created_at
json.attachments #message.attachments do |attachment|
json.filename attachment.filename
json.url url_for(attachment)
end
This will build the following structure:
{
"content": "<p>This is <i>serious</i> monkey business</p>",
"created_at": "2011-10-29T20:45:28-05:00",
"updated_at": "2011-10-29T20:45:28-05:00",
"author": {
"name": "David H.",
"email_address": "'David Heinemeier Hansson' <david#heinemeierhansson.com>",
"url": "http://example.com/users/1-david.json"
},
"visitors": 15,
"comments": [
{ "content": "Hello everyone!", "created_at": "2011-10-29T20:45:28-05:00" },
{ "content": "To you my good sir!", "created_at": "2011-10-29T20:47:28-05:00" }
],
"attachments": [
{ "filename": "forecast.xls", "url": "http://example.com/downloads/forecast.xls" },
{ "filename": "presentation.pdf", "url": "http://example.com/downloads/presentation.pdf" }
]
}
So in you case your code should be something like:
json.(#event, #case_tracking_id, #request_type, historic_event)