Fetch subsets from collections in backbone.js via rest - rest

Question

Currently i am working on a single-page-application with backbone.js.
My server is providing a REST api.
http://server.com/article is returning the latest articles from all categories.
http://server.com/article/categoryname is returning the latest articles from specified category only.
My current collection looks like this:
define(['backbone', 'models/article'], function(Backbone, Article) {
return Backbone.Collection.extend({
model: Article,
url: "http://server.com/article",
});
});
So with fetch i can receive all the latest articles from all categories. Where should i implement my specific category requests, so i do not have to create a collection for every category by myself and a possible caching won't be so difficult at all.
Would it be better to change my rest api and receive all articles and filter them in the backbone app? Or should i implement a fetchFromCategory method in my collection and build the caching myself?
I am thankful for every hint or idea!

Answer 1

If fetching all the Articles in a single request is not an issue, you can do that. To get articles by categoryName, you can then add a method in the collection as below :
define(['backbone', 'models/article'], function(Backbone, Article) {
return Backbone.Collection.extend({
model: Article,
url: "http://server.com/article",
getArticlesByCategory : function(category) {
return this.filter(function(article){
//Assuming 'Article' has a property named 'categoryName'
return article.get('categoryName') == category;
});
}
});
});
Now, if articles is your collection you can do :
var categoryXYZArticles = articles.getArticlesByCategory('XYZ');