Using backbone collections with a rest route that returns an object - rest

Question

Looking at the example code
var accounts = new Backbone.Collection;
accounts.url = '/accounts';
accounts.fetch();
this works if the route returns an array
[{id:1, name:'bob'}, {id:2, name:'joe'}]
but the REST service I'm using returns an object like this
{
items: [{id:1, name:'bob'}, {id:2, name:'joe'}],
page: 1,
href: '/acounts'
}
How to I go about telling Backbone.Collection that the collection is in items?

Answer 1

Parse function seems appropriate.
From the documentation:
http://backbonejs.org/
"When fetching raw JSON data from an API, a Collection will automatically populate itself with data formatted as an array, while a Model will automatically populate itself with data formatted as an object:
[{"id": 1}] ..... populates a Collection with one model.
{"id": 1} ....... populates a Model with one attribute.
However, it's fairly common to encounter APIs that return data in a different format than what Backbone expects. For example, consider fetching a Collection from an API that returns the real data array wrapped in metadata:
{
"page": 1,
"limit": 10,
"total": 2,
"books": [
{"id": 1, "title": "Pride and Prejudice"},
{"id": 4, "title": "The Great Gatsby"}
]
}
In the above example data, a Collection should populate using the "books" array rather than the root object structure. This difference is easily reconciled using a parse method that returns (or transforms) the desired portion of API data:
var Books = Backbone.Collection.extend({
url: '/books',
parse: function(data) {
return data.books;
}
});
"
Hope it helps.