Ember Data ISO Date Transform

July 25, 2014

Most of my EmberJS projects use a datetime field somewhere on the backend. Reading them from the API is easy using a ‘date’ attribute type, but this doesn’t serialize to a very API friendly format. For example:

new Date().toString()
"Wed Aug 06 2014 12:39:29 GMT+0200 (CEST)"

My API expects to receive date times in ISO 8601 format. We can easily achieve this using MomentJS and an an Ember Data Transform.

bower install --save moment

app/transforms/isodate.coffee

`import DS from 'ember-data'`

IsodateTransform = DS.Transform.extend
  # The deserialize function just transforms the string it receives from the
  # server JSON response into a date.
  deserialize: (serialized) ->
    if serialized
      moment(serialized).toDate()

  # The serialize function takes the value of the attribute on the model and
  # transforms it into a nice ISO date to send to our server.
  serialize: (deserialized) ->
    if deserialized
      if deserialized instanceof Date
        moment(deserialized).toISOString()
      else
        # I'm using the European date format here. This is how date strings are
        # set on my models by my datetimepicker inputs. US readers may be able
        # to leave this second argument out
        moment(deserialized, 'DD/MM/YY h:mm a').toISOString()

`export default IsodateTransform`

Now in any models where it is needed, you can use your isodate transform.

app/models/user.coffee

`import DS from 'ember-data'`

User = DS.Model.extend
  createdAt: DS.attr('isodate')

`export default User`

Need some extra development power?

I don't have a lot of time at the moment, but I'm always interested to hear about new projects. I'm particularly interested in EmberJS/Elixir projects and refactoring Rails monoliths. Drop me a line at hello [at] mattbeedle [dot] name or using my contact form http://www.mattbeedle.name/#page-contact.

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