Let's say we want to populate some javascript models (eg backbone.js models), given a json response from a server like this:
{
"todo": {
"title": "My todo",
"items": [
{ "body": "first item." },
{ "body": "second item"}
]
}
}
This data does not contain the type information, so we do not know which model to populate when we see the "todo" key.
Of course one can create some custom standard to link the keys in the json response object to the client side models. For instance:
{
"todo": {
"_type": "Todo",
"title": "My todo",
...
}
}
While this works for objects, it gets awkward when it comes to lists:
"items": {
"_type": "TodoItem",
"_value": [
{ "body": "first item." },
{ "body": "second item"}
]
}
Before creating this custom rules, the questions are:
Are there any RESTful guidelines on including client side type information in response data?
If not, is it a good idea to include the client side type information in the response json?
Beside this whole approach of populating models, what are other alternatives?
Edit
While the model type can be retrieved from the url, eg /todo and /user, the problem with this approach is that the initial population of N models would mean N http requests.
Instead, the initial population can be done from a single big merged tree with only 1 request. In this case, the model type information in the url is lost.
