Cerealizer

The purpose of this module is to serialize an array of objects (each containing one or more collection objects) into collection arrays of objects with references to relationships.

Usage

var cerealizer = require('cerealizer');
var data = [
  {
    majors: { id: 1, name: 'Capital' },
    minors: { id: 'a', height: 33 }
  },
  {
    majors: { id: 1, name: 'Capital' },
    minors: { id: 'b', height: 20 }
  },
  {
    majors: { id: 2, name: 'Class' },
    minors: { id: 'b', height: 20 }
  }
];
console.log(cerealizer(data));
// Outputs
// {
//   majors: [
//     { id: 1, name: 'Capital', minorIds: ['a', 'b'] },
//     { id: 2, name: 'Class', minorIds: ['b'] }
//   ],
//   minors: [
//     { id: 'a', height: 33, majorIds: [1] },
//     { id: 'b', height: 20, majorIds: [1, 2] }
//   ]
// }

Description

The serializer runs through a series of operations, which are merging of elements, merging of namespaces, building of relationships, and converting to arrays.

Merging of elements

This operation changes the data from being a single array of objects each containing one or more collection objects into an array for each collection containing all of their respective elements. The options identifier (default is id) is used to only add distinct entities to each collection.

Merging of namespaces

This operation merges collections with the same namespace into a single collection. An example of common usage with MySQL is a table containing two different references to a single table, like a user having both a primary and a secondary group. The collections should then be named something like groups:primary and groups:secondary, which will cause both of them to be merged into the collection groups.

Building of relationships

This operation builds relationships between entities. The options identifier (default is id) is used to find the identified relationship. Relationships are found by using singular collection names combined with the identifier (e.g. groupId for groups). It also handles many-to-many relationships, where the structure would be a collection called userGroups with userId and groupId, which will create a reference to userId and groupId on the corresponding group and user respectively. The userGroups collection will also be passed along.

Converting to arrays

This operation runs through all collections and converts the object containing the entities into an array.

API

cerealizer(array[, options])

Serializes the array of objects into collection arrays of objects with references to relationships.

• array: Array of objects (each containing one or more collection objects)
• options (optional):
  • identifier: String or array of identifier keys

Example

cerealizer([
  {
    majors: { id: 1 },
    minors: { id: 2 }
  }
]);
// Outputs
// {
//   majors: [ { id: 1 } ],
//   minors: [ { id: 2 } ]
// }

cerealizer.inflectors

addRule(plural, singular)

Adds a rule to the Inflectors module that will override existing patterns. Rules added are used for both pluralization and singularization.

• plural: String of the plural form to match (or respond with when singularizing)
• singular: String of the singular form to match (or respond with when pluralizing)

Example

cerealizer.inflectors.addRule('foo', 'bar');
cerealizer.inflectors.singularize('foo'); //-> bar
cerealizer.inflectors.pluralize('bar'); //-> foo

removeRule(plural)

Removes a rule from the Inflectors module.

• plural: String of the plural form to remove

Example

cerealizer.inflectors.addRule('foo', 'bar');
cerealizer.inflectors.singularize('foo'); //-> bar
cerealizer.inflectors.removeRule('foo');
cerealizer.inflectors.pluralize('bar'); //-> bars

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Mmmm.. Cereal