Question about serializing blocks

[riclep]

Question about serializing blocks

[RicLeP]

Hi @chaseconey

If I’m reading this correctly you basically want to get a JSON representation of the Block? There are couple of variations to that:

• JSON just like Storyblok provides
• JSON of content fields (potentially with mutators?)
• JSON of the block, with the package specific data (or sub set of) and the content

It’s definitely something I’ve thought about, being able to send JSON to the frontend more easily. There isn’t any way to handle any of the above yet.

Blocks could have a toJSON method - and would this attach meta data? Maybe mapping the fields you want in the JSON.

Or something like Laravel’s API Resources? I’ve not used them much so am not that familiar with their pros and cons.

There could also be a benefit to being able to stop parsing the nested blocks and keeping some as JSON. Maybe a nested block doesn’t need to be transformed into a class and simply becomes a JSON or array ‘field’ on the parent?

Sorry, not really answering anything for you here, but is this the kind of thoughts you were having?

[RicLeP]

Hi @chaseconey, do you happen to know exactly what Laravel is doing under the hood with calling @json'? I can’t see where this directive defined in the framework. I’ve been playing with a couple of ideas but need to know what @json` does.

[czuniga9]

@RicLeP looking at a view generated in storage/framework/views/, I can see that @json($foo) generates <?php echo json_encode($foo, 15, 512) ?>;.

The 15 being these flags: JSON_HEX_TAG | JSON_HEX_AMP | JSON_HEX_APOS | JSON_HEX_QUOT.

Edit: It is defined in Illuminate\View\Compilers\Concerns\CompilesJson

[RicLeP]

Thanks @czuniga9 ! I didn’t think to look it the compiled view 😅

In 2.10.6 Block now implements JsonSerializable, see: https://www.php.net/manual/en/class.jsonserializable.php

By default it uses $this->content(). If you need something more bespoke then you’ll need to override the jsonSerialize() method on your Block.

I did something similar recently before implementing JsonSerializable which should be easy to migrate to the new style.

class Nav extends BaseBlock
{
    public function toArray() {
	return $this->content()->transform(function ($item) {
		return $item->transform(function ($item) {
			return $item->toArray();
		});
	})->first();
    }
}

class NavDropdown extends BaseBlock
{
	public function toArray() {
		$dropDown =  $this->content()->transform(function ($item) {
			if (is_string($item)) {
				return $item;
			}

			return $item->transform(function ($item) {
				return $item->toArray();
			});
		});

		$dropDown['isOpen'] = false;

		return $dropDown;
	}
}

class NavLink extends BaseBlock
{
	public function toArray() {
		return $this->content()->transform(function ($item) {
			return is_string($item) ? $item : rtrim((string) $item, '/');
		});
	}
}

With the structure: