“How” to save an entire collection in Backbone.js - Backbone.sync or jQuery.ajax?

Question

I am well aware it can be done and I\'ve looked at quite a few places (including: Best practice for saving an entire collection?). But I\'m still not clear \"exactly how\"

Answer 1

This really depends on what the contract is between the client and server. Here's a simplified CoffeeScript example where a PUT to /parent/:parent_id/children with {"children":[{child1},{child2}]} will replace a parent's children with what's in the PUT and return {"children":[{child1},{child2}]}:

class ChildElementCollection extends Backbone.Collection
  model: Backbone.Model
  initialize: ->
    @bind 'add', (model) -> model.set('parent_id', @parent.id)

  url: -> "#{@parent.url()}/children" # let's say that @parent.url() == '/parent/1'
  save: ->
    response = Backbone.sync('update', @, url: @url(), contentType: 'application/json', data: JSON.stringify(children: @toJSON()))
    response.done (models) => @reset models.children
    return response

This is a pretty simple example, you can do a lot more... it really depends on what state your data's in when save() is executed, what state it needs to be in to ship to the server, and what the server gives back.

If your server is ok with a PUT of [{child1},{child2], then your Backbone.sync line could change to response = Backbone.sync('update', @toJSON(), url: @url(), contentType: 'application/json').