backbone-model-url-templating

Plugin to Backbone.js to allow for model URL templating.

Model URL templating are a handy way to create models that have service urls that change depending on the model's data. This is useful for services that have complex URL patterns.

Usage

URL templating allows for the URL of sync calls to be dynamically generated according to a template. By default the URL template is read from the url property of the model. A different URL for each sync method can be specified in the urls property as key/value pairs.

Basic syntax

var Model = Backbone.ServiceModel.extend({
	url: 'path/to/some/api/{id}.json'
});

var model = new Model({ id: 12345 });
model.fetch(); // will make service call to 'path/to/some/api/12345.json'

Interpolation

The URL template uses the { property } syntax. All values are automatically URL encoded and can be assumed safe. Any properties in the Model attributes or defined as static properties are available in the template.

'path/to/some/service/{id}.json' => 'path/to/some/service/12345.json'

The URL template may also do more complex interpolation since any valid javascript code may be executed within braces.

'path/to/{ id ? id : "123" }' => '/path/to/123' or '/path/to/someId'
'path/to/{ name.split(" ").join(".").toLowerCase() }' => '/path/to/john.smith'

Method level templating

The Backbone.Model calls sync with the different methods depending on the state of the model. This is described in Backbone's Sync documentation. The urls property can be used to map the method call to a specific URL. If no method mapping is defined in the URLs property, it will default to the url property instead.

urls: {
	'create': '/path/to/create/url',
	'read': 'path/to/read/url',
	'update': 'path/to/update/url',
	'delete': 'path/to/delete/url'
}

URL function callbacks

Along with the string templating, URLs may also be in the form of a callback function. The function is called with the context of the current model and expects to return a string as the result. Since the result is processed through the interpolation engine, the result may also contain templating syntax.

url: function (){ return this.get('name'); },

urls: {
	'create': function (){ return 'path/to/{id}'; }
}

Support

To suggest a feature, report a bug, or general discussion: http://github.com/huffingtonpost/backbone-model-url-templating/issues/