Databasedotcom materialize a custom object in Ruby - ruby

Question

I would like to return the results of a SOQL query as JSON, but the data seems to be returned as a string.
client = SFDC_Adapter.login
data = client.query("SELECT MarkupAmount__c,
MarkupPercent__c,
Product_Type_Id__c,
Product_Type__c
FROM Product_Type__c
WHERE Product_Type_Id__c = #{product_type_id}")
p data
=> [#<Product_Type__c:0x00000001c356f8 #Id=nil, #OwnerId=nil, #IsDeleted=nil, #Name=nil, #CreatedDate=nil, #CreatedById=nil, #LastModifiedDate=nil, #LastModifiedById=nil, #SystemModstamp=nil, #MarkupPercent__c=5.0, #Subscription__c=nil, #Product_Type__c="Research Trip", #MarkupAmount__c=nil, #Product_Type_Id__c=36.0>]
puts data
=> #<Product_Type__c:0x00000001c356f8>
puts data.to_json
=> ["#<Product_Type__c:0x00000001c356f8>"]
How do I materialize these results into a JSON object for use in a Restful service?

Answer 1

I don't know that gem, but from looking at your output, and glancing at your results, it looks like you got a Product_Type object back.
When you use p or puts, inspect is being used, which is turning the instance into something viewable in a web-page, by using an HTML encoding on it. That's why you see < and > in the output.
Instead, you need to access the values in the object. According to the docs, you can use standard getters or using a hash[key] form to do that:
contact = Contact.find("contact_id") #=> #
contact = Contact.find_by_Name("John Smith") #=> dynamic finders!
contacts = Contact.all #=> a Databasedotcom::Collection of Contact instances
contacts = Contact.find_all_by_Company("IBM") #=> a Databasedotcom::Collection of matching Contacts
contact.Name #=> the contact's Name attribute
contact["Name"] #=> same thing
contact.Name = "new name" #=> change the contact's Name attribute, in memory
contact["Name"] = "new name" #=> same thing
contact.save #=> save the changes to the database
contact.update_attributes "Name" => "newer name",
"Phone" => "4156543210" #=> change several attributes at once and save them
contact.delete #=> delete the contact from the database
Try data['Product_Type_Id'] and you should get 36.0. An alternate way of doing the same thing is data.Product_Type_Id.
Once you have your accessors figured out you can generate JSON using a simple hash or array of hashes. This would generate a hash:
require 'json'
hash = {
'Id' => data.Id,
'OwnerId' => data.OwnerId,
'IsDeleted' => data.IsDeleted,
'Name' => data.Name,
'CreatedDate' => data.CreatedDate,
'CreatedById' => data.CreatedById,
'LastModifiedDate' => data.LastModifiedDate,
'LastModifiedById' => data.LastModifiedById,
'SystemModstamp' => data.SystemModstamp,
'MarkupPercent' => data.MarkupPercent,
'Subscription' => data.Subscription,
'Product_Type' => data.Product_Type,
'MarkupAmount' => data.MarkupAmount,
'Product_Type_Id' => data.Product_Type_Id,
}
puts hash.to_json
I didn't see a to_h or to_hash method which would be a shortcut.