Save multiple model at once, in bulk

Question

I know this subject has already been discussed around stackoverflow and other forums, but I cannot find the right way to do it.

I have a model called "post" which contain post information (user, description, etc...). The user receive a few post, reads them and make actions on them. The posts are coming from my api when I request a GET /api/posts/

I also have a model called "post-state" where I save the action of people reading the post: when they like, share, vote, or favourite the post.

export default DS.Model.extend({
    post: belongsTo('post'),
    user: belongsTo('user'),
    liked: attr('boolean', { defaultValue: false }),
    favourited: attr('boolean', { defaultValue: false }),
    voted: attr('boolean', { defaultValue: false }),
    shared: attr('boolean', { defaultValue: false }),
});

I'm looking for a way for my ember application to save my post-state models in a bulk, just the way I received the post in a bulk as well. The post states would be saved with an api call POST /api/post-states/

I've read in a discussion that the best way would be to create a custom adapter, but I'm not sure what to put in it to be able to do that... maybe to create a function saveAllRecords()?

What would be the best solution for me?

Thank you for you help!

Answer 1

I've looked around and it seems like there is no proper way to do this with Ember, but I've come up with something I'm not sure how much of the Ember Way it is. What you can do is make a different model that contains a hasMany attribute that would contain the models you want to bulk save, and then add those models to the container model and you can play with the serializer/adapter to get what you want. Here is how it would work:

Model (lets call it post-state-container)

import DS from 'ember-data';

export default DS.Model.extend({
  postStates: DS.hasMany('post-state')
});

Serializer

import DS from 'ember-data';
import Ember from 'ember';

export default DS.RESTSerializer.extend(DS.EmbeddedRecordsMixin, {
  attrs: {
    postStates: { embedded: 'always' },
  },
  serializeIntoHash: function(data, type, record, options) {
    Ember.$.extend(data, this.serialize(record, options));
  }
});

You can massage the payload sent to the server here to fit what you need for your backend, because you will get a list of serialized post-state objects in JSON format from this.serialize(record, options)

Adapter

import DS from 'ember-data';

export default DS.RESTAdapter.extend({
  namespace: 'api',
  urlForCreateRecord: function() {
    return this.get('namespace') + '/post-states';
  },
});

How to use it (probably and action in a route or controller somewhere)

  let record1 = this.store.createRecord('post-state'); //These would be your populated records
  let record2 = this.store.createRecord('post-state'); //These would be your populated records
  let postStateContainer = this.store.createRecord('post-state-container');
  postStateContainer.get('post-state-container').pushObject(record1);
  postStateContainer.get('post-state-container').pushObject(record2);
  postStateContainer.save();

I've tested this, and it works. I'm not sure if there is a better way using JSONApi or something like that