How to mass assign all attributes of a Backbone model?

Asked By: Anonymous

I would like to update the User model whenever signIn was successful. It includes the id assign by the backend which has not been present in the model before.

MyApp.module("User", function(User, App, Backbone, Marionette, $, _) {

  User.Controller = Backbone.Marionette.Controller.extend({

    initialize: function() {
      this.model = new MyApp.User.Model();
    },

    signIn: function(credentials) {
      var signInData = { user: credentials };
      var self = this;

      App.session.signIn(signInData, {
        success: function(model, response, options) {
          self.updateUserModel(model);
        },
        error: function(model, xhr, options) {}
      });
    },

    updateUserModel: function(model) {
      // TODO Update all attributes, including new onces e.g. id.
    }

  });
});

How would you update all attribtues at once? I know that I manually can set every single attribute but this seems to be wrong since the list of attributes may change over time.
Generally, I would expect such an update(model) method in the User model.

When I use Backbone’s model.set() method as suggested by nikoshr and john-4d5 …

    signIn: function(credentials) {
      var signInData = { user: credentials };
      var self = this;

      App.session.signIn(signInData, {
        success: function(model, response, options) {
          self.model.set(model);
        },
        error: function(model, xhr, options) {}
      });
    },

… the id attribute is copied into this.model but other properties such as name are missing.

The model returned in the success callback looks like this:

_changing: false
_pending: false
_previousAttributes: Object
attributes: Object
    bind: function (name, callback, context) {
    close: function (){
    constructor: function (){ return parent.apply(this, arguments); }
    created_at: "2013-07-22T19:03:24Z"
    email: "[email protected]"
    id: 3
    initialize: function () {
    listenTo: function (obj, name, callback) {
    listenToOnce: function (obj, name, callback) {
    logout: function () {
    model: child
    name: "Some User"
    off: function (name, callback, context) {
    on: function (name, callback, context) {
    once: function (name, callback, context) {
    options: Object
    signIn: function (credentials) {
    signUp: function (credentials) {
    stopListening: function (obj, name, callback) {
    trigger: function (name) {
    triggerMethod: function (event) {
    unbind: function (name, callback, context) {
    updated_at: "2013-08-05T13:20:43Z"
    user: Object
    __proto__: Object
    changed: Object
cid: "c3"
id: 3
__proto__: Surrogate

Solution

Answered By: Anonymous

• You are moving around a Backbone.Model,
• Model.set accepts a hash of attributes,
• you can convert a Backbone.Model to a hash of attributes with Model.toJSON

You could write your callback as

success: function(model, response, options) {
    self.model.set(model.toJSON());
}