Support the attributes method

[fonji]

Hello,

As I'm writing a webservice, I want my data to be available through JSON.
During the process of deciding how will I do that, I found a nice-to-have issue for tripod.
Implementing the attributes method so people can use ActiveModel::Serializers::JSON (or any othe ActiveModel Serializer) would be nice.
Here are some details:

The default json serialization of a Tripod object is not the best ever (but understandable):
It uses predicates URIs as vars names, non-multivalued data are in arrays anyways, simple values will be in an object with an "@value" variable, etc.
Steps to produce such an output are below.
Using the default respond_with(tripodObject) gives another output, which is much more detailed so even less readable (but should be way more from_json-able).

In my case, I have to re-write as_json in my model anyway, but to help someone else it might be usefull to implement the "attributes" method.
This allows models to include ActiveModel::Serializers::JSON, which offers nice options and output for the as_json method.
Please read this stack overflow answer for more details.

To produce default json output:
Simply add something like this in your controller:

  def show
    @p = # get your tripod object here
    respond_to do |format|
      format.html # default show.html.rb
      format.json { render json: @p }
    end
  end

And then access /controller/id.json.
The detailed output can be obtained by:

  def show
    @p = # get your tripod object here
    respond_to do |format|
      format.html # show.html.rb
      format.json { respond_with(@p) }
    end
  end

I hope that this is clear enough, do not hesitate to ask a question if needed.