Readme.md

ActiveRecord for AngularJS

angular-activerecord is a Backbone.Model inspired modellayer for AngularJS.

API Documentation

Differences compared to Backbone.Model

• No attributes property.
• Because the properties and methods are on the same level the ActiveRecord methods & config-properties are prefixed with "$" to prevent naming collisions.
• Stripped out functionality that is provided by angular)
  • No getter/setter methods. (Angular has $scope.$watch)
  • No event system. (Angular has $scope.$emit)
  • No dependency on underscore. (angular.extend, angular.isFunction, etc)
  • No dependency on jQuery. (Angular has $http)
  • No Collection class. (Angular works with plain javascript array's)
• Added static fetchOne(id) and fetchAll() class-methods.
• Added read & write filtering of properties through angular filters.

Goals / Features (compared to ngResource)

• Extendable OOP designed models (instance methods per type)
• Enable parsing the response.
• Allow default values.
• Allow alternative backends.
• Allow alternative url schemes (like a .json suffix)
• Minimal configuration (only a $urlRoot), the json-object from the rest-api is the spec.

Examples

Defining a model

module('myApp', ['ActiveRecord']); // Add "ActiveRecord" as module dependency.

module('myApp').factory('Task', function (ActiveRecord) {

   return ActiveRecord.extend({

   	// Rest API configuration for retrieving and saving tasks.
   	$urlRoot: '/api/tasks',

   	// Optional defaults
   	$defaults: {
   		title: 'Untitled',
   		estimate: ''
   	},

   	// optional named constructor (Shows "Task" as the type in a console.log)
   	$constructor: function Task(properties) {
   		this.$initialize.apply(this, arguments)
   	},

   	// An example method for task instances
   	/**
   	 * Return the estimate in hours
   	 * @return {Number}
   	 */
   	estimateInHours: function () {
   		var value = parseFloat(this.estimate);
   		if (isNaN(value)) {
   			return 0.0;
   		}
   		return value / 3600;
   	}
   });

Fetching and saving data.

module('myApp').controller('TaskCtrl', function ($scope, Task, $document) {

	Task.fetchOne(7).then(function (task7) { // Fetches '/api/tasks/7'
		$scope.task = task7;
		$document.title = task7.title  + ' - MyApp';
	});

	/**
	 * @param {Task} task
	 */
	$scope.saveTask = function (task) {
		$scope.spinnerVisible = true;
		task.$save().then(function () {
			$scope.successVisible = true;
		}).catch(function (error) {
			$scope.error = error;
		}).finally(function () {
			$scope.spinnerVisible = false;
		});
	};
});

Loading models via ngRoute

module('myApp', ['ngRoute']).config(function ($routeProvider) {
	$routeProvider
		.when('/tasks', {
			templateUrl: 'tasks.html',
			controller: 'TaskListCtrl',
			resolve: {
				tasks: function (Task) {
					return Task.fetchAll();
				}
			}
		})
		.when('/tasks/:taskId', {
			templateUrl: 'task.html',
			controller: 'TaskCtrl',
			resolve: {
				task: function ($routeParams, Task) {
					return Task.fetchOne($routeParams.taskId);
				}
			}
		});
});

module('myApp').controller('TaskCtrl', function ($scope, task) {
	$scope.task = task;
});