knockoutJS doesn't convert Json to observable

Question

I wrote a simple application to get JSON data from the sever C# code public JsonResult Read() { var products = db.Products; return Json(GetProducts(), JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet); }

    public IEnumerable<Product> GetProducts()
    {
        var data = db.Products.ToList();
        return (data);
    }

In the view i wrote the following to bind view model data.

<div>
<table data-bind="with: products">
    <thead><tr><th>From</th><th>To</th><th>Subject</th></tr></thead>
    <tbody data-bind="foreach: Object">
        <tr>
            <td data-bind="text: id"></td>
            <td data-bind="text: name"></td>
            <td data-bind="text: description"></td>
        </tr>    
    </tbody>
</table>
</div>
 <script type="text/javascript">
     function ProductsViewModel() {
         var self = this;
         self.products = ko.observable();
         $.getJSON("http://localhost:50998/Home/Read", function (data) {
             self.products = JSON.parse(data);
         });

}
     ko.applyBindings(new ProductsViewModel());
 </script>

The Json data return from action is as follows

[{"ID":1,"Name":"Roger","Description":"Test1"},{"ID":2,"Name":"Roger2","Description":"Test2"}]

After i have parse the JSON, i can't use the parsed object to update the observerable.

Does anyone know why this happens?

Björn Kaiser Björn Kaiser · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-18T12:45:02

If you want to set the value of self.products (or the value of any other observable) to the result of JSON.parse you need to call it like this self.products(JSON.parse(data)). Observables are like functions so you need to treat them like functions ;-)

knockoutJS doesn't convert Json to observable

1 Answers