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Event Based Backbone Collection Comparison

Use events to compare the contents of two or more Backbone Collections.

Installation

Simply include the backbone.cocomp.js file in your asset pipeline, <script> tag, or wherever your JavaScript assets are served.

Requirements

CoComp requires Backbone.js v0.9.9 or higher. The passing test suite runs against Backbone v1.0.0.

The State of Things

This library is pretty stable as of version 0.0.7. CoComp is being developed using Test Driven Development practices to ensure that new bugs aren't introduced as the project progresses.

Usage

See Backbone.CoComp in action on jsfiddle

A sample use case: You have a collection you are adding things to, we'll call it a box, and a collection for searching for things to add to the box. Somehow, you want to indicate in the search results what is already in the box.

Getting Started

The first thing to do is to create an instance of Backbone.CoComp. By default it will compare the models in each collection with the id attribute.

cocomp = new Backbone.CoComp()

Next the collections that will be compared need to be set on our CoComp instance. Each collection is set with a name. This will become important when setting up event listeners on the models.

box = new Backbone.Collection()
searchResults = new Backbone.Collection()

cocomp.set("box", box)
cocomp.set("search", searchResults)

As soon as the collections are set, the CoComp events will immediately be triggered on the models in each collection. (More on the events in a minute) If you don't want the events to trigger automatically, pass a silent: true option when calling set. This would only apply when setting the collection, and future add, remove and reset events on the collection would not be silent.

cocomp.set("box", box, {silent: true})

Events

The events are named like so: cocomp:in:<collection_name> and cocomp:out:<collection_name>. CoComp will respond to add, remove and reset events on each collection. The events will also be triggered when setting a new collection on a CoComp instance (unless you use the silent: true option).

Let's walk through this. If a model is added to the searchResults collection, the model will receive two events.

model = new Backbone.Model({id: 1})
searchResults.add(model)

# cocomp:in:search
# cocomp:out:box

These events can by understood semantically by saying "the model is in the search collection" and "the model is out of the box collection". Notice that the collection name when calling set is used in the event.

Now the same model is added to the collection named box. This will trigger a cocomp:in event on the box collection (cocomp:in:box).

box.add(model)  # cocomp:in:box

Now that our box has a model, let's reset the searchResults simulating receiving data from the server.

searchResults.reset({id: 1, id: 2, id: 3})  # this could be a `fetch(reset: true)`

# Triggered on our model in the box collection (remember, it does have an id of 1)
#
# cocomp:in:search

# Triggered on each model in search results 
#
# id: 1  =>  cocomp:in:box
# id: 2  =>  cocomp:out:box
# id: 3  =>  cocomp:out:box

If we remove the model from the box collection, it would receive a cocomp:out event from the box collection (cocomp:out:box). The corresponding model in the searchResults collection would also receive this event.

box.remove(model)  # cocomp:out:box

If, at any time, we want CoComp to compare the collection manually, simply call the compare method on the CoComp instance.

cocomp.compare()

Setting up Event Listeners in a View

Now we just need to setup an event listener in our view to respond to the events. We're going to do this in a SearchResult view, which handles a single model in the searchResults collection.. Basically, if the search result is already in the box collection, we want it to appear faded.

# In our SearchResult view

initialize: function() {
  this.listenTo(this.model, 'cocomp:in:box', this.onInBox)
  this.listenTo(this.model, 'cocomp:out:box', this.onOutBox)
}

onInBox: function() {
  this.$el.addClass('faded')  # or hide it, or whatever
}

onOutBox: function() {
  this.$el.removeClass('faded')  # or show it
}

All Together Now!

Here is the final result, in one piece of CoffeeScript.

# Setting up some Collections 

box = new Backbone.Collection()
searchResults = new Backbone.Collection()


# Setting up the Backbone.CoComp Instance

cocomp = new Backbone.CoComp()

cocomp.set "box", box
cocomp.set "search", searchResults


# The search result view

SearchResultView = Backbone.View.extend
  initialize: ->
    # @model is a single search result in the searchResults collection

    @listenTo @model, 'cocomp:in:box', @onInBox
    @listenTo @model, 'cocomp:out:box', @onOutBox

  onInBox: ->
    @$el.addClass('faded')  

    # however you want to indicate that the search result is already 
    # in the box

  onOutBox: ->
    @$el.removeClass('faded')

    # the search result isn't in the box, return to normal

Advanced

CoComp can be handily customized to suit your needs. There are several advanced behaviors that can help you get the most out of CoComp.

The Comparator

By default, the models in each collection are compared by their id attribute.

modelA.get('id') === modelB.get('id')

Using a Different Attribute

If you need to compare a different attribute, let the CoComp instance know during instanciation.

cocomp = new Backbone.CoComp({comparator: "name"})

# modelA.get("name") === modelB.get("name")

Comparing with Eqaulity

If you need to CoComp to compare the exact model instance, use the === comparator

cocomp = new Backbone.CoComp({comparator: "==="})

# modelA === modelB

Providing a Custom Comparator

If you really need to get crazy, you can specify the comparator function yourself. The function should receive a single argument, and return true if the two models are equal (which would trigger a cocomp:in event) or false if they are not (which would trigger a cocomp:out event).

The Comparator Argument

The models being compared can be accessed on the comparator's argument in two different ways depending on the symmetry of the objects being compared.

Symmetrical Access

The easiest way to access each model is by the [0] and [1] indexes of the argument.

comparator = function(obj) {
  obj[0].someMethod() === obj[1].someMethod()
}

This will work when the models in each collection are symmetrical, meaning that it doesn't matter if obj[0] is from the boxes collection of the search results collection.

Asymmetrical Access

The models in the argument can also be accessed by the collection name it belongs to. This is the only way to compare asymmetical models. In other words, you need to know which collection the model comes from.

comparator = function(obj) {
  obj.box.get('id') === obj.search.get('product_id')
}

This is also a good way to compare more than two collections. Using the box and search result example above, we could compare the search results to multiple boxes. (CoffeeScript)

cocomp.set("box1", box)
cocomp.set("box2", box2)
cocomp.set("search", searchResults)

comparator = (obj)->
  return unless obj.search  # won't compare box1 to box2

  boxModel = obj.box1 || obj.box2  # we'll either have a box1 or a box2, but not both
  boxModel.get('id') == obj.search.get('product_id')

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. Please be aware of the following:

  • CoComp is written in CoffeeScript, which compiles into JavaScript. Please change the *.coffee files only, and make sure that the files you change are compiled to JavaScript before submitting a pull request.

    I will usually run the following while working on CoComp: coffee -wc . This will compile the .coffee source into .js as you work.

  • Jasmine specs are included with this project. To run the test suite, open spec/index.html in your browser. Pull requests with passing tests are preferred :)

License

Copyright (c) 2013 David Biehl. This software is licensed under the MIT License.