Serializing models

If you create an API server, you may want to convert the model instances to plain JSON objects before sending them to the client in response.

The process of transforming class instances to plain JSON objects is known as serialization. During the serialization process, you may also want to:

• Convert the camelCase model property names to snake_case.

• Hide/remove some of the properties from the API responses. For example: Removing the password property from the User model.

• Convert/mutate values. For example: Converting the timestamps to an ISO string.

• Add additional computed properties. For example: Compute the fullName from the user's first and the last name.

You can perform all these transformations within your models without creating any separate transformers or resource classes.

Basic example

You can serialize a model by calling either the serialize or the toJSON method. For example:

const post = await Post.find(1)
const postJSON = post.serialize()

You can serialize an array of model instances by calling the Array.map method.

const posts = await Post.all()
const postsJSON = posts.map((post) => post.serialize())

Serializing paginated results

When working with paginated results, you can serialize the models by calling the .serialize method on the paginator instance.

The paginator.serialize method returns an object with meta and data properties. The meta is the pagination metadata and data is an array of serialized models.

const posts = await Post.query().paginate(1)
const paginationJSON = posts.serialize()

/**
 {
    meta: {},
    data: []
 }
 */

Computed properties

During the serialization process, the model returns an object with properties using the @column decorator. If you want to serialize any additional properties, then make use of the @computed decorator.

import { DateTime } from 'luxon'
import string from '@adonisjs/core/helpers/string'
import { BaseModel, column, computed } from '@adonisjs/lucid/orm'

export default class Post extends BaseModel {
  @column({ isPrimary: true })
  declare id: number

  @column()
  declare body: string

  @computed()
  get excerpt() {
    return string.truncate(this.body, 50)
  }
}

Re-naming properties

You can rename the serialized property names by using the serializeAs option. You will still access the property by its actual name on the model, but the serialized output will use the serializeAs name. For example:

import { DateTime } from 'luxon'
import { BaseModel, column } from '@adonisjs/lucid/orm'

export default class Post extends BaseModel {
  @column({ isPrimary: true })
  declare id: number

  @column({ serializeAs: 'content' })
  declare body: string
}

const post = await Post.find(1)
post.serialize()

/**
 {
    id: 1,
    content: 'Adonis 101'
 }
 */

Hiding properties

You can remove the model properties from the serialized output by setting the serializeAs value to null. For example:

import { DateTime } from 'luxon'
import { BaseModel, column } from '@adonisjs/lucid/orm'

export default class User extends BaseModel {
  @column({ isPrimary: true })
  declare id: number

  @column()
  declare email: string

  @column({ serializeAs: null })
  declare password: string
}

const user = await User.find(1)
user.serialize()

/**
 {
    id: 1,
    email: 'virk@adonisjs.com'
 }
 */

Mutating/transforming values

You can also transform a property value during serialization by defining the serialize method. It receives the property's current value, and the return value is passed to the serialized output.

import { DateTime } from 'luxon'
import { BaseModel, column } from '@adonisjs/lucid/orm'

export default class Post extends BaseModel {
  @column({ isPrimary: true })
  declare id: number

  @column.dateTime({
    autoCreate: true,
    serialize: (value: DateTime | null) => {
      return value ? value.setZone('utc').toISO() : value
    },
  })
  declare createdAt: DateTime
}

Serializing relationships

The preloaded relationships are automatically serialized every time you serialize a model instance. For example:

const posts = await Post.query().preload('comments')

const postsJSON = posts.map((post) => post.serialize())

In the above example, the comments for all the posts will be serialized to the post object. For example:

{
  id: 1,
  title: 'Adonis 101',
  comments: [{
    id: 1,
    content: 'Nice article'
  }]
}

You can change the relationship property name by defining the serializeAs option on the relationship definition.

import { DateTime } from 'luxon'
import Comment from '#models/comment'
import type { HasMany } from '@adonisjs/lucid/types/relations'
import { BaseModel, column, hasMany } from '@adonisjs/lucid/orm'

export default class Post extends BaseModel {
  @column({ isPrimary: true })
  declare id: number

  @hasMany(() => Comment, {
    serializeAs: 'postComments',
  })
  comments: HasMany<typeof Comment>
}

const posts = await Post.query().preload('comments')

const postsJSON = posts.map((post) => post.serialize())

/**
{
  id: 1,
  title: 'Adonis 101',
  postComments: [{
    id: 1,
    content: 'Nice article'
  }]
}
*/

If you don't want to serialize a relationship, you can set the serializeAs = null.

Serializing $extras object

The query result values which are not defined as columns on the model are moved to the $extras object.

For example, in the following query, we fetch the category_name using a subquery. However, your model has no knowledge about this on the fly category_name column, and hence we will move its value to the $extras object.

const post = await Post.query()
  .select('*')
  .select(
    db
      .from('categories')
      .select('name')
      .whereColumn('posts.category_id', 'categories.id')
      .limit('1')
      .as('category_name')
  )
  .first()

You can access the extras object from the model instance as follows:

post.$extras.category_name

You can also serialize the $extras object by defining the following property on the model.

class Post extends BaseModel {
  /**
   * Serialize the `$extras` object as it is
   */
  serializeExtras = true
}

Also, you can customize the properties you want to pick from the extras object by declaring the serializeExtras property as a function.

class Post extends BaseModel {
  serializeExtras() {
    return {
      category: {
        name: this.$extras.category_name,
      },
    }
  }
}

Cherry picking fields/relationships

The cherry-picking API is designed by keeping the consumer of the API in mind. Some of the options may look verbose or less intuitive, but once you look at it from the perspective of the API consumer, things will start to make more sense.

Picking/omitting fields

You can pass a tree of fields/relationships to pick or omit from the final results during the serialization process. For example:

const post = await Post.find(1)

posts.serialize({
  fields: {
    pick: ['id', 'title', 'createdAt'],
  },
})

Instead of picking fields, you can also define the fields to omit. When both are specified, the omit will win over the pick array.

const post = await Post.find(1)

posts.serialize({
  fields: {
    omit: ['createdAt', 'updatedAt'],
  },
})

Picking relationships and their fields

You can also cherry-pick the complete relation nodes or pick/omit fields from the relationships.

const post = await Post.query().preload('comments').preload('category').preload('author').first()

post.serialize({
  fields: {
    pick: ['id', 'title', 'body'],
  },
  relations: {
    comments: {
      fields: ['id', 'body'],
    },
    author: {
      fields: ['id', 'email', 'avatar_url'],
    },
  },
})

The serialization tree may look verbose at first. However, most API servers do not define the fields or pick/omit by hand and usually compute it from the URL query string.

Points to note

• The cherry-picking API uses the serialization property names and not the model property names.
• Again, from the API consumer point of view, they don't know the property name you have defined on the model. They can only see the JSON response and cherry-pick using the same property names.
• The cherry-picking API cannot override the serializeAs = null option. Otherwise, someone can define the password field in the URL query string to view all the hashed passwords.