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https://github.com/nesquena/rabl

General ruby templating with json, bson, xml, plist and msgpack support
https://github.com/nesquena/rabl

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General ruby templating with json, bson, xml, plist and msgpack support

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# RABL #



[![Gem Version](https://badge.fury.io/rb/rabl.svg)](https://badge.fury.io/rb/rabl)

[![Continuous Integration status](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/actions)

[![Code Climate](https://codeclimate.com/github/nesquena/rabl.svg)](https://codeclimate.com/github/nesquena/rabl)



RABL (Ruby API Builder Language) is a Rails and [Padrino](http://padrinorb.com) ruby templating system for generating JSON, XML, MessagePack, PList and BSON.

When using the ActiveRecord 'to_json' method, I find myself wanting a more expressive and powerful solution for generating APIs.

This is especially true when the JSON representation is complex or doesn't match the exact schema defined within the database.



In particular, I want to easily:



 * Create arbitrary nodes named based on combining data in an object

 * Pass arguments to methods and store the result as a child node

 * Render partial templates and inherit to reduce code duplication

 * Rename or alias attributes to change the name from the model

 * Append attributes from a child into a parent node

 * Include nodes only if a certain condition has been met



Anyone who has tried the 'to_json' method used in ActiveRecord for generating a JSON response has felt the pain of this restrictive approach.

RABL is a general templating system created to solve these problems by approaching API response generation in an entirely new way.



RABL at the core is all about adhering to MVC principles by deferring API data representations to the **view** layer of your application.

For a breakdown of common misconceptions about RABL, please check out our guide to

[understanding RABL](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/wiki/Understanding-RABL) which can help clear up any confusion about this project.



## Breaking Changes ##



 * v0.9.0 (released Oct 14, 2013) changes the [default node name for certain associations](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/issues/505)

   especially around STI models. You might want to verify for any breakages as a result and

   be more explicit by specifying an alias i.e `@users => :users`



 * v0.8.0 (released Feb 14, 2013) removes multi_json dependency and

   relies on Oj (or JSON) as the json parser. Simplifies code, removes a dependency

   but you might want to remove any references to MultiJson.



 * v0.6.14 (released June 28, 2012) requires the use of render_views

   with RSpec to test templates. Otherwise, the controller will simply

   pass through the render command as it does with ERB templates.



## Installation ##



Install RABL as a gem:



```

gem install rabl

```



or add to your Gemfile:



```ruby

# Gemfile

gem 'rabl'

# Also add either `oj` or `yajl-ruby` as the JSON parser

# If using `oj`, Rabl will set the mode to :compat

gem 'oj'

```



and run `bundle install` to install the dependency.



If you are using **Rails 2.3.8 (and up), Rails 3.X or Padrino**, RABL works without configuration.



**Important:** With Padrino, be sure that **the rabl gem is listed after the padrino gem in your Gemfile**, otherwise

Rabl will not register properly as a template engine.



With Sinatra, or any other tilt-based framework, simply register:



```ruby

Rabl.register!

```



and RABL will be initialized and ready for use. For usage with Sinatra, check out

the [Sinatra Usage](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/wiki/Setup-for-Sinatra) guide.



## Overview ##



You can use RABL to generate JSON and XML based APIs from any ruby object.

With RABL, the data typically is derived primarily from models (ORM-agnostic) and the representation of the API output is described within

a view template using a simple ruby DSL. This allows you to keep your data separated from the JSON or XML you wish to output.



Once you have installed RABL (explained above), you can construct a RABL view template and then render the template

from your Sinatra, Padrino or Rails applications from the controller (or route) very easily. Using [Padrino](http://padrinorb.com) as an

example, assuming you have a `Post` model filled with blog posts, you can render an API representation (both JSON and XML) by creating a route:



```ruby

# app/app.rb

get "/posts", :provides => [:json, :xml] do

  @user = current_user

  @posts = Post.order("id DESC")

  render "posts/index"

end

```



Then we can create the following RABL template to express the API output of `@posts`:



```ruby

# app/views/posts/index.rabl

collection @posts

attributes :id, :title, :subject

child(:user) { attributes :full_name }

node(:read) { |post| post.read_by?(@user) }

```



Which would output the following JSON or XML when visiting `http://localhost:3000/posts.json`



```js

[{  "post" :

  {

    "id" : 5, "title": "...", "subject": "...",

    "user" : { "full_name" : "..." },

    "read" : true

  }

}]

```



That's a basic overview but there is a lot more to see such as partials, inheritance, custom nodes, etc. Read the full details of RABL below.



## Configuration ##



RABL is intended to require little to no configuration to get working. This is the case in most scenarios, but depending on your needs you may want to set the following global configurations in your application (this block is completely optional):



```ruby

# config/initializers/rabl_init.rb

require 'rabl'

Rabl.configure do |config|

  # Commented as these are defaults

  # config.cache_all_output = false

  # config.cache_sources = Rails.env != 'development' # Defaults to false

  # config.cache_engine = Rabl::CacheEngine.new # Defaults to Rails cache

  # config.perform_caching = false

  # config.escape_all_output = false

  # config.json_engine = nil # Class with #dump class method (defaults JSON)

  # config.msgpack_engine = nil # Defaults to ::MessagePack

  # config.bson_engine = nil # Defaults to ::BSON

  # config.plist_engine = nil # Defaults to ::Plist::Emit

  # config.include_json_root = true

  # config.include_msgpack_root = true

  # config.include_bson_root = true

  # config.include_plist_root = true

  # config.include_xml_root  = false

  # config.include_child_root = true

  # config.enable_json_callbacks = false

  # config.xml_options = { :dasherize  => true, :skip_types => false }

  # config.view_paths = []

  # config.raise_on_missing_attribute = true # Defaults to false

  # config.replace_nil_values_with_empty_strings = true # Defaults to false

  # config.replace_empty_string_values_with_nil_values = true # Defaults to false

  # config.exclude_nil_values = true # Defaults to false

  # config.exclude_empty_values_in_collections = true # Defaults to false

  # config.camelize_keys = :upper # Defaults to false

end

```



Each option specifies behavior related to RABL's output.



If `include_json_root` is disabled that removes the root node for each root object in the output, and `enable_json_callbacks` enables support for 'jsonp' style callback

output if the incoming request has a 'callback' parameter.



If `include_child_root` is set to false then child objects in the response will not include

a root node by default. This allows you to further fine-tune your desired response structure.



If `cache_engine` is set, you should assign it to a class with a `fetch` method. See the [default engine](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/blob/master/lib/rabl/cache_engine.rb) for an example.



If `perform_caching` is set to `true` then it will perform caching. You

can ignore this option if you are using Rails, it's same to Rails

`config.action_controller.perform_caching`



If `cache_sources` is set to `true`, template lookups will be cached for improved performance.

The cache can be reset manually by running `Rabl.reset_source_cache!` within your application.



If `cache_all_output` is set to `true`, every template including each individual template used as part of a collection will be cached separately.

Additionally, anything within child, glue and partial will also be cached separately.

To cache just a single template, see the section titled 'Caching' below.



If `escape_all_output` is set to `true` and ActiveSupport is available, attribute output will be escaped using [ERB::Util.html_escape](http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ERB/Util.html).



If `view_paths` is set to a path, this view path will be checked for every rabl template within your application.

Add to this path especially when including Rabl in an engine and using view paths within a another Rails app.



If `raise_on_missing_attribute` is set to `true`, a RuntimeError will be raised whenever Rabl

attempts to render an attribute that does not exist. Otherwise, the attribute will simply be omitted.

Setting this to true during development may help increase the robustness of your code, but using `true` in

production code is not recommended.



If `replace_nil_values_with_empty_strings` is set to `true`, all values that are `nil` and would normally be displayed as `null` in the response are converted to empty strings.



If `exclude_nil_values` is set to `true`, all values that are `nil` and would normally be displayed as `null` in the response are not included in the response.



if `exclude_empty_values_in_collections` is set to `true`, all values in a collection that are `{}` and would normally be displayed as `{}` in the response are not included in the response.



If `camelize_keys` is set to `true`, all object keys will be converted to camel case. By default the first character will be lower case. The value can be set to `:upper` to set the first character to upper case.



If you wish to use [oj](https://github.com/ohler55/oj) as

the primary JSON encoding engine simply add that to your Gemfile:



```ruby

# Gemfile

gem 'oj'

```



and RABL will use that engine automatically for encoding your JSON responses.

Set your own custom json_engine which define a `dump` or `encode`

method for converting to JSON from ruby data:



```ruby

config.json_engine = ActiveSupport::JSON

```



### Format Configuration ###



RABL supports configuration for MessagePack, BSON, and Plist. Check the

[Format Configuration](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/wiki/Configuring-Formats) page for more details.



## Usage ##



### Object Assignment ###



To declare the data object for use in the template:



```ruby

# app/views/users/show.json.rabl

object @user

```



or specify an alias for the object:



```ruby

object @user => :person

# => { "person" : { ... } }

```



or pass a collection of objects:



```ruby

collection @users

# => [ { "user" : { ... } } ]

```



or specify a root node label for the collection:



```ruby

collection @users => :people

# => { "people" : [ { "person" : { ... } } ] }

```



or even specify both the child and root labels for a collection:



```ruby

collection @users, :root => "people", :object_root => "user"

# => { "people" : [ { "user" : { ... } } ] }

```



and this will be used as the default data for the rendering, or disable the object root explicitly:



```ruby

collection @users, :root => "people", :object_root => false

# => { "people" : [ { ... }, { ... } ] }

```



There can also be odd cases where the root-level of the response doesn't map directly to any object:



```ruby

object false

node(:some_count) { |m| @user.posts.count }

child(@user) { attribute :name }

```



In those cases, object can be assigned to 'false' and nodes can be constructed free-form.



### Attributes ###



Basic usage of the templater to define a few simple attributes for the response:



```ruby

# app/views/users/show.json.rabl

attributes :id, :foo, :bar

```



or use with aliased attributes:



```ruby

# Take the value of model attribute `foo` and name the node `bar`

attribute :foo => :bar

# => { bar : 5 }

```



or even multiple aliased attributes:



```ruby

attributes :bar => :baz, :dog => :animal

# => # { baz : , animal :  }

```



or show attributes only if a condition is true:



```ruby

# m is the object being rendered, also supports :unless

attributes :foo, :bar, :if => lambda { |m| m.condition? }

```



Named and aliased attributes can not be combined on the same line. This currently does not work:



```ruby

attributes :foo, :bar => :baz # throws exception

```



in such cases, you need to specify attributes twice.



```ruby

attributes :foo

attributes :bar => :baz

```



### Child Nodes ###



Often a response requires including nested information from data associated with the parent model:



```ruby

child :address do

  attributes :street, :city, :zip, :state

end

```



You can also disable object root for child node:

```ruby

child :posts, :object_root => false do

  attributes :id, :title

end

```



You can also add child nodes from an arbitrary data source:



```ruby

child @posts => :foobar do

  attributes :id, :title

end

```



or use model associations with an alias:



```ruby

# Renders all the 'posts' association

# from the model into a node called 'foobar'

child :posts => :foobar do

  attributes :id, :title

end

```



You can also pass in the current object:



```ruby

object @user

child :posts do |user|

  attribute :title unless user.suspended?

end

```



### Gluing Attributes ###



You can also append child attributes back to the root node:



```ruby

# Appends post_id and post_name to parent json object

glue @post do

  attributes :id => :post_id, :name => :post_name

end

```



Use glue to add additional attributes to the parent object.



You can also pass in the current object:



```ruby

object @user

glue(@post) {|user| attribute :title if user.active? }

```



### Custom Nodes ###



This will generate a json response based on the result of the `node` block:



```ruby

# app/views/users/show.json.rabl

node :full_name do |u|

  u.first_name + " " + u.last_name

end

```



or don't pass a name and have the node block merged into the response:



```ruby

node do |u|

  { :full_name => u.first_name + " " + u.last_name }

  # => { full_name : "Bob Johnson" }

end

```



You can use custom nodes like these to create flexible representations of a value utilizing all the data from the model.



### Partials ###



Often you need to access other data objects in order to construct custom nodes in more complex associations. You can get access to the rabl representation of another data object by rendering a RABL partial:



```ruby

node :location do

  { :city => @city, :address => partial("users/address", :object => @address) }

end

```



or even access an object associated with the parent model:



```ruby

node :location do |m|

  { :city => m.city, :address => partial("users/address", :object => m.address) }

end

```



You can use this method to construct arbitrarily complex nodes for your APIs. Note that you need to have RABL templates defined

for each of the objects you wish to construct representations for in this manner.



### Inheritance ###



Another common issue of many template builders is unnecessary code redundancy. Typically many representations of an object across multiple endpoints share common attributes or nodes. The nodes for a 'post' object are probably the same or similar in most references throughout the various endpoints.



RABL has the ability to extend other "base" rabl templates and additional attributes:



```ruby

# app/views/users/advanced.json.rabl

extends "users/base" # another RABL template in "app/views/users/base.json.rabl"



node :can_drink do |m|

  m.age > 21

end

```



You can also extend other rabl templates while constructing child nodes to reduce duplication:



```ruby

# app/views/users/show.json.rabl

child @address do

  extends "address/item"

end

```



Using partials and inheritance can significantly reduce code duplication in your templates.



You can see more examples on the [Reusing Templates wiki page](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/wiki/Reusing-templates).



### Passing Locals in Partials ###



You can pass an arbitrary set of locals when rendering partials or extending templates.

For example, if we want to show on `posts/:id.json` any information regarding particular post and associated comments

but in other cases we want to hide those comments. We can use locals to do this:



```ruby

# app/views/posts/index.json.rabl

collection @posts



extends('posts/show', :locals => { :hide_comments => true })

# or using partial instead of extends

# node(false) { |post| partial('posts/show', :object => :post, :locals => { :hide_comments => true })}

```



and then access locals in the sub-template:



```ruby

# app/views/posts/show.json.rabl

object @post



attributes :id, :title, :body, :created_at

node(:comments) { |post| post.comments } unless locals[:hide_comments]

```



This can be useful as an advanced tool when extending or rendering partials.



### Conditions ###



You can provide conditions to all kinds of nodes, attributes, extends, etc. which includes a given element only if the specified condition is true.



```ruby

collection @posts

# m is the object being rendered, also supports :unless

node(:coolness, :if => lambda { |m| m.coolness > 5 }) do |m|

  m.coolness

end

```



Because attributes take conditional options as well, we could simplify the example with:



```ruby

collection @posts

# m is the object being rendered, also supports :unless

attribute(:coolness, :if => lambda { |m| m.coolness > 5 })

```



The value for the `:if` and `:unless` options may be a simple `Boolean`, `Proc` or a `Symbol`. If it is a `Symbol` and the specific `@object` responds to its, the method will be called. Thus the example above can be rewritten as:



```ruby

class Post

  def cool?

    coolness > 5

  end

end

```



and then:



```ruby

collection @posts

attribute :coolness, if: :cool?

```



Using conditions allows for easy control over when certain elements render.



### Template Scope ###



In RABL, you have access to everything you need to build an API response. Each RABL template has full access to the controllers

instance variables as well as all view helpers and routing urls.



```ruby

# app/some/template.rabl

object @post

# Access instance variables

child(@user => :user) { ... }

# or Rails helpers

node(:formatted_body) { |post| simple_format(post.body) }

```



There should be no problem fetching the appropriate data to construct a response.



### Deep Nesting ###



In APIs, you can often need to construct 2nd or 3rd level nodes. Let's suppose we have a 'quiz' model that has many 'questions'

and then each question has many 'answers'. We can display this hierarchy in RABL quite easily:



```ruby

# app/views/quizzes/show.json.rabl

object @quiz

attribute :title

child :questions do

  attribute :caption

  child :answers do

    # Use inheritance to reduce duplication

    extends "answers/item"

  end

end

```



This will display the quiz object with nested questions and answers as you would expect with a quiz node, and embedded questions and answers.

Note that RABL can be nested arbitrarily deep within child nodes to allow for these representations to be defined.



### Caching ###



RABL has built-in caching support for templates leveraging fragment caching strategies. Note that caching is currently **only available** for Rails but support for other frameworks is planned in a future release. Simplest caching usage is:



```ruby

# app/views/users/show.json.rabl

object @quiz

cache @quiz # key = rabl/quiz/[cache_key]

attribute :title

```



Caching can significantly speed up the rendering of RABL templates in production and is strongly recommended when possible. For more a more detailed look at caching, check out the [Caching](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/wiki/Caching-in-RABL) guide on the wiki.



### Rendering Templates Directly ###



There are situations where an application requires RABL templates to be rendered outside

a traditional view context. For instance, to render RABL within a Rake task or to create

message queue payloads. For this case, `Rabl.render` can be used as show below:



```ruby

Rabl.render(object, template, :view_path => 'app/views', :format => :json) #=> "{...json...}"

```



You can use convenience methods on `Rabl::Renderer` to render the objects as well:



```ruby

Rabl::Renderer.json(@post, 'posts/show')

Rabl::Renderer.xml(@post, 'posts/show')

```



These methods allow RABL to be used for arbitrary conversions of an object into a desired format.



```ruby

Rabl::Renderer.new('posts/show', @post, :view_path => 'app/views', :format => 'hash').render

```



You can also pass in other instance variables to be used in your template as:



```ruby

Rabl::Renderer.new('posts/show', @post, :locals => { :custom_title => "Hello world!" })

````



Then, in your template, you can use `locals[:custom_title]` as:



```ruby

attribute :content

node(:title) { locals[:custom_title] }

```



### Content Type Headers ###



Currently in RABL, the content-type of your response is not set automatically. This is because RABL is intended

to work for any Rack-based framework and as agnostic to format as possible.

Check [this issue](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/issues/185#issuecomment-4501232) for more

details, and if you have any ideas or patches please let me know.



In the meantime, be sure to set the proper content-types if needed. This is usually pretty simple in both

Rails and Padrino. I recommend a before_filter on that controller or directly specified in an action.



## Resources ##



There are many resources available relating to RABL including the [RABL Wiki](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/wiki),

and many tutorials and guides detailed below.

You can check out the [RABL Site](http://nesquena.github.com/rabl) as well.



### Advanced Usage ###



Links to resources for advanced usage:



 * [Managing Complexity](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/wiki/Managing-complexity-with-presenters)

 * [Production Optimizations](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/wiki/Rabl-In-Production)

 * [Grape Integration](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/wiki/Using-Rabl-with-Grape)

 * [Rendering JSON for a tree structure using RABL](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/issues/70)

 * [Layouts (erb, haml and rabl) in RABL](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/wiki/Using-Layouts)

 * [Backbone or Ember.js Integration](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/wiki/Backbone-Integration)

 * [RABL with Rails Engines](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/wiki/Setup-rabl-with-rails-engines)



Please add your own usages and let me know so we can add them here! Also be sure to check out

the [RABL Wiki](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/wiki) for other usages.



### Tutorials ###



Tutorials can always be helpful when first getting started:



 * [Railscasts #322](http://railscasts.com/episodes/322-rabl) - Ryan Bates explains RABL

 * [BackboneRails](http://www.backbonerails.com/) - Great screencasts by Brian Mann

 * http://blog.joshsoftware.com/2011/12/23/designing-rails-api-using-rabl-and-devise/

 * http://tech.favoritemedium.com/2011/06/using-rabl-in-rails-json-web-api.html

 * http://seesparkbox.com/foundry/better_rails_apis_with_rabl

 * http://teohm.github.com/blog/2011/05/31/using-rabl-in-rails-json-web-api



Let me know if there's any other useful resources not listed here.



### Related Libraries ###



There are other libraries that can either complement or extend the functionality of RABL:



 * [versioncake](https://github.com/bwillis/versioncake) - Excellent library for easily versioning your RABL APIs

 * [gon](https://github.com/gazay/gon) - Exposes your Rails variables in JS with RABL support integrated.

 * [rabl-rails](https://github.com/ccocchi/rabl-rails) - Reimplementation for RABL and Rails

   [focused on speed](https://github.com/ccocchi/rabl-benchmark/blob/master/BENCHMARK).



Let me know if there's any other related libraries not listed here.



### Troubleshooting ###



 * [Redundant calls for a collection](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/issues/142#issuecomment-2969107)

 * [Testing RABL Views](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/issues/130#issuecomment-4179285)



### Examples ###



See the [examples](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/tree/master/examples) directory.



## Issues ##



Check out the [Issues](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/issues) tab for a full list:



 * Rigorous benchmarking and performance optimizations



## Authors and Contributors ##



Active Maintainers:



 * [Douwe Maan](https://github.com/DouweM)

 * [Nathan Esquenazi](https://github.com/nesquena)



Thanks to [Miso](http://gomiso.com) for allowing me to create this for our applications and release this project!



* [Nathan Esquenazi](https://github.com/nesquena) - Creator of the project

* [Arthur Chiu](https://github.com/achiu) - Core Maintainer, Riot Testing Guru

* [Tim Lee](https://github.com/timothy1ee) - RABL was a great name chosen by the Miso CTO.

* [Douwe Maan](https://github.com/DouweM) - Multi support for caching, fixed test suite

* [Andrew Latimer](https://github.com/ahlatimer) - Multi support for caching

* [David Sommers](https://github.com/databyte) - Template resolution, caching support, and much more

* [Rick Thomas](https://github.com/rickthomasjr) - Added options for extends and Sinatra testing

* [Benjamin Yu](https://github.com/byu) - Added msgpack format support

* [Chris Kimpton](https://github.com/kimptoc) - Helping with documentation and wiki

* [Marjun](https://github.com/mpagalan) - Added xml option configurations

* [Anton Orel](https://github.com/skyeagle) - Added Rails 3.1 compatibility

* [Sasha Koss](https://github.com/kossnocorp) - Added multi_json support

* [Matthew Schulkind](https://github.com/mschulkind) - Cleanup of configuration and tests

* [Luke van der Hoeven](https://github.com/plukevdh) - Support non-ORM objects in templates

* [Andrey Voronkov](https://github.com/Antiarchitect) - Added BSON format support

* [Alli Witheford](https://github.com/alzeih) - Added Plist format support

* [Ryan Bigg](https://github.com/radar) - Improved template resolution code

* [Ivan Vanderbyl](https://github.com/ivanvanderbyl) - Added general purpose renderer

* [Cyril Mougel](https://github.com/shingara) - Added cache_engine pluggable support and renderer tweaks

* [Teng Siong Ong](https://github.com/siong1987) - Improved renderer interface

* [Brad Dunbar](https://github.com/braddunbar) - Pass current object into blocks



and many more contributors listed in the [CHANGELOG](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md).



Want to contribute support for another format?

Check out the patches for [msgpack support](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/pull/69), [plist support](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/pull/153) and

[BSON support](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/pull/163) for reference.



Please fork and contribute, any help in making this project better is appreciated!



This project is a member of the [OSS Manifesto](http://ossmanifesto.org).



## Inspirations ##



There are a few excellent libraries that helped inspire RABL and they are listed below:



 * [Tequila](https://github.com/inem/tequila)

 * [JSON Builder](https://github.com/dewski/json_builder)

 * [Argonaut](https://github.com/jbr/argonaut)



Thanks again for all of these great projects.



## Copyright ##



Copyright © 2011-2013 Nathan Esquenazi. See [MIT-LICENSE](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/blob/master/MIT-LICENSE) for details.