Backbone Send Post data encoded as query string

Question

I'm creating a backbone app that's connecting to a RESTful backend. When I call save() on a model, it sends the post data as stringified JSON:

{"firstName":"first","lastName":"last","Email":"[email protected]"}

but my server expects it to be formatted like a querystring:

firstName=first&lastName=last&[email protected]

is there a way to have backbone send it differently?

Answer 1

Backbone doesn't provide anything like this out of the box.
But is easy to override and customize it to your needs.

Have a look to the source code: http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/docs/backbone.html

and check out that calling save, it will trigger a sync call in the background.

So what you need is to override Backbone.sync function with your own.

I would modify the part of:

if (!options.data && model && (method == 'create' || method == 'update')) {
      params.contentType = 'application/json'; 
      params.data = JSON.stringify(model.toJSON());
}

with

if (!options.data && model && (method == 'create' || method == 'update')) {
      params.contentType = 'application/json';
      params.data = $.param(model); // <-- CHANGED 
}

Notice I'm using jQuery param

If you want to use a custom function, check this question: Query-string encoding of a Javascript Object

[Update.]
No need to modify directly. Better override it with your own function 'Backbone.sync' Check the "TODO" example of the Backbone repository. It has a localStorage.js file that overrides Backbone.sync function https://github.com/documentcloud/backbone/tree/master/examples

Answer 2

I ran into this problem at work and the Backbone.emulateJSON didn't work for me either. With some help I was able to come up with this workaround. We overrode the Backbone.ajax function and changed the contentType to "application/x-www-form-urlencoded" and used $.param to properly serialize the data.

Backbone.ajax = function() {
    if(arguments[0].data && arguments[0].contentType == "application/json"){
        arguments[0].data = $.param(JSON.parse(arguments[0].data));
        arguments[0].contentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
    }
    return Backbone.$.ajax.apply(Backbone.$, arguments);
}