Tutorial on Models.Base, and how to make a child

Backbone_Base_Model.md

Creating Models becomes much easier with the Base Model.

In this example I will walk through some of the default conventions and requirements for creating such a model.

model.js.coffee

((Models) ->
  Models.Client = Models.Base.extend
    someCode: ->
)(Application.Models)

#In the above code the model extends base by calling Models.Base.Extend
#At a minimum this is what is needed to create a base Model

nested.js.coffee

#base also ensures that all nested models and collections are properly created in both parse and initialize

#client.js.coffee

  #just declare collections with has_many and the attribute name
  #and  models with has_one and the attribute name
  has_many: ["email_addresses", "addresses", "phone_numbers"]

  #if the attribute name does not match the model/collection name, then pass an object {attr: class}
  has_one:
    "primary_email_address" : "Email"
    "primary_address"       : "Address"


#base will handle the parsing and initializing of these in its default functions

#base.js.coffee
   initialize: (object) ->
     @setup_nested()
    parse: (json)       -> 
      @setup_nested(json)
      json


#you can iterate through the nested keys by using the following functions:
@models()  # -> ['primary_email_address', 'primary_address']
@collections() # -> ["email_addresses", "addresses", "phone_numbers"]

urls.js.coffee

#the base model does some work for you.  firstly it binds the backbone url function to be called by default.
#this enables you to use urlRoot in its proper way.  rails-backbone messes this up.

#(this rids the need for that url: -> "clients/#{@id}" nonsense

#Base.js.coffee
  url: -> Backbone.Model.prototype.url.call @
#Client.js.coffee
  urlRoot: "/clients"

validations.js.coffee

#base will validate your nested models and collections by default for you
#if a collection is a BaseCollection then it will return validate on all the models

#in addition you can set presence validations within the model, and they will be called by default
  #client.js.coffee
    validates_presence_of: ["name"]