Multi row toJSON function using Propel and Backbone - php

Question

I'm trying to make what should be a very simple "list all" function using Propel ORM - for Backbone.js to read. This is what I want to do, and in my opinion, should work:
$users = UsersQuery::create()
->find();
echo $users->toJSON();
However, when I'm running that, the results I'm getting are:
{"Users_0":{"Id":1,"EmailAddress":"sdf","Password":"sdf","CreatedAt":null,"ModifiedAt":null},
"Users_1":{"Id":2,"EmailAddress":"dsf","Password":"sdf","CreatedAt":null,"ModifiedAt":null}}
Whilst it's valid JSON, the fact that ever row is an array in the main array is throwing off my JSON. What I need it to return is JSON like this:
[{"Id":1,"EmailAddress":"sdf","Password":"sdf","CreatedAt":null,"ModifiedAt":null},{"Id":2,"EmailAddress":"dsf","Password":"sdf","CreatedAt":null,"ModifiedAt":null}]
I've created the below function (as a test) and it works perfectly, but surely Propel (or Slim, the framework I'm using) has way of stopping everything being inside an array? Here the hack;
$users = UsersQuery::create()
->find();
$json = '[';
foreach($users as $user){
$json = $json.$user->exportTo('JSON').',';
}
$json = $json.']';
echo str_replace("},]", "}]", $json);
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks all.

Answer 1

I hate to say it, but I think this is just one of those "that's how Propel works" situations. That said, you could improve your helper function a little to be more robust.
I would put this code in your UserQuery class:
class UsersQuery extends BaseUsersQuery {
...
public function toJSONArray() {
$users = $this->find();
$userArray = array();
foreach($users as $user){
array_push($userArray, $user->toArray());
}
return json_encode($userArray);
}
}
And then use it like so...
$userJSON = UsersQuery::create()->toJSONArray();
Or if you have other criteria...
$userJSON = UsersQuery::create()
->filterBySomeField("someValue")
// other Criteria ...
->toJSONArray();

Answer 2

is there a possible solution to use this and a select filter in one statement. Something like this:
$ojson = TblproductQuery::create()
->select(array('ProdtID', 'DivnID'))
->toJsonArray();

Answer 3

One thing the accepted answer does not address is when you have an object with a nested collection. Like maybe you have a Bunch of tests with answers like so:
[
{
id:test1,
answers : [
{ id: 1, answer: pig},
{ id: 2, answer: dog}
]
},
{
id:test2,
answers : [
{ id: 5, answer: duck},
{ id: 6, answer: swan}
]
}
]
The above won't play nicely with backbone collections when you try to use the accepted answer. This is because every propel model will call the PropelCollection::toArray() method on any propel collections within itself
The PopelCollection::toArray() method will only return itself as an associative array in php which gets converted to an unsorted set in JSON rather than an array. Backbone collections are sorted (arrays) only.
To fix this, I just changed the toArray() method in the propel source file PropelCollection.phpto the following:
public function toArray(
$keyColumn = null,
$usePrefix = false,
$keyType = BasePeer::TYPE_PHPNAME,
$includeLazyLoadColumns = true,
$alreadyDumpedObjects = array()){
$ret = array();
foreach ($this as $key => $obj) {
array_push($ret, $obj->toArray($keyType, $includeLazyLoadColumns,
$alreadyDumpedObjects, true);
}
return $ret;
}
I haven't seen how this affects the toXML or toYAML methods, but it allows the toJSON method to work as I want with nested collections like my example above.