Root element

[MicTech]

Hello 👋
I'm experimenting with Oj::Serializer and our API using root elements in responses, even for a single record.

The issue I'm having is that I cannot make it work in Oj::Serializer. ☹️

Here is my serializer

class OjDocumentSerializer < Oj::Serializer
   attributes :id, :content
 end

Here is my controller

class Api::DocumentsController < Api::RestResourcesController
   def show
     @doc = current_tenant.documents.find_by(id: params[:id])

     render json: OjDocumentSerializer.one(@doc, root: :document)
   end

The response is without a root element

{"id" => "f7a8b63c-4eec-4505-ad7c-d0f10000315d", "content" => "Foo Bar"}

Thank you

[ElMassimo]

Hi Michal!

root should not be passed to the serializer, it should be a keyword passed to render, and it's only handled when using compat.

Otherwise, the recommended approach is to use a Hash:

render json: {
  document: OjDocumentSerializer.one(@doc),
}

Not only is it more explicit and intuitive, it lends itself naturally to extension if you need to render additional properties.

[MicTech]

@ElMassimo Thank you. It makes more sense now 🙏

I tried what you suggest and the problem with it is that I'm getting following response body

{"document":"{\"id\":\"f7a8b63c-4eec-4505-ad7c-d0f10000315d\",\"content\":\"Foo Bar\"}\n"}

Which isn't correct from my point of view 🤷‍♂️

[ElMassimo]

Seems odd, it looks like the serializer is encoded as a string. That's not the default behavior, as you can you can see in this example app.

Are you using custom configuration for oj? Or a different gem that might override the default JSON renderer in Rails?

If you provide a minimal reproduction I can take a look.