Store and recover nested Backbone models into local storage

Question

I'm looking for creating a complex backbone model architecture as :

Backbone Model A
- Backbone Model B1 (in A)
  - Collection Model C (in B1)
- Backbone Model B2 (in A)

I wish to nest Backbone Models for the following reasons :

I have a global view that will display information present in A and B
I have a view that displays all B1 attributes

In the end, I wanted one Backbone model for one view, but I must save a collection of A only into the local storage.

For now my principle is as follows :

When initializing A :

In initalize() of A model I set :
```
this.attributes.modelB = new ModelB();
```

For the moment, if I create an object modelA, I can access a B attribute as follows :

modelA.attributes.modelB.get ('id') 
// or 
modelA.attributes.modelB.attributes.id

In fact it's just a nested backbone model object

Let's store A into local storage for a later use :

I add A to my collection “itemsCollection”
I save A with save()

Let's take a look into the local storage :

localStorage.getItem ("itemsCollection")

Added A object is fully json parsed, as if by calling the method save(), each level of Backbone object into A model perform a toJSON().

All fields are well stored.

Now I need to read this object to display the content in my view.

I create a collection "itemsCollection" then I call method fetch().

Disaster, only the first level is recovered, over level are reset as empty B models.

Something tells me the fetch() method wasn't made for recovering nested backbone model. But, my model pattern is simple and common, I need objects in objects, my solution may not be correct.

Do you have any suggestion for me ?

Thank you in advance

biril biril · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-09T01:23:54

True, Backbone will not cater for nested models (models-within-models):

Backbone doesn't include direct support for nested models and collections or "has many" associations because there are a number of good patterns for modeling structured data on the client side, and Backbone should provide the foundation for implementing any of them.

You can read all about it here where some suggestions are also offered.

Store and recover nested Backbone models into local storage

1 Answers