Rails converting Javascript array to Hash?

Question

I JS I send this to rails:

[{name: "Jon"}, {name: "Jane"}]

I expect Rails/Ruby to interpret it into the same structure, but instead it converts it to a hash like this:

{ "0" => {"name" => "Jon"}, "1" => {"name" => "Jane"} }

Any idea why this happens, or how to prevent it?

Answer 1

You're not actually sending [{name: "Jon"}, {name: "Jane"}] , you're sending "[{name: "Jon"}, {name: "Jane"}]" so rails has to convert it to something or else you'd be doing some messy regex's to get at the data you want. So rails converts it to a HashWithIndifferentAccess Object for you. I highly doubt you want to hack at rails internals, so why not just parse your code the way rails presents it instead of coercing it into another format?

Answer 2

That's a correct behaviour. If you're interested in sending Array as parameters, you have to use some_field_name[] type of field instead of simple "field_name" in javascript.