JSON & Rails: How to remove array brackets inside keypath of JSON results

Question

I've got a JSON formatting question -- essentially I'm just trying to remove the array [ ] around the objects inside the keypath that are returned from the Rails controller:

# channels controller
  def index
    @channels = Channel.all

    respond_to do |format|
      format.html # index.html.erb
      format.json { render :json => { :channels => @channels } }
    end
  end

# channels.rb
  def as_json(options={})
    { self.id => self.attributes }
  end

# returns this JSON:
{"channels":[{"78":{"id":78,"name":"Zombie Bass","created_at":"2012-03-21T04:04:36Z","updated_at":"2012-04-20T01:21:12Z","num_of_listeners":1}},{"82":{"id":82,"name":"The Beatles123","created_at":"2012-03-22T20:28:34Z","updated_at":"2012-04-17T04:34:07Z","num_of_listeners":1}},{"125":{"id":125,"name":"New!","created_at":"2012-04-19T04:05:47Z","updated_at":"2012-04-19T04:05:47Z","num_of_listeners":1}},{"132":{"id":132,"name":"Test!","created_at":"2012-04-26T21:00:30Z","updated_at":"2012-04-26T21:00:30Z","num_of_listeners":1}}]}

# I want this JSON (just remove the array around all the channels):
{"channels":{"78":{"id":78,"name":"Zombie Bass","created_at":"2012-03-21T04:04:36Z","updated_at":"2012-04-20T01:21:12Z","num_of_listeners":1}},{"82":{"id":82,"name":"The Beatles123","created_at":"2012-03-22T20:28:34Z","updated_at":"2012-04-17T04:34:07Z","num_of_listeners":1}},{"125":{"id":125,"name":"New!","created_at":"2012-04-19T04:05:47Z","updated_at":"2012-04-19T04:05:47Z","num_of_listeners":1}},{"132":{"id":132,"name":"Test!","created_at":"2012-04-26T21:00:30Z","updated_at":"2012-04-26T21:00:30Z","num_of_listeners":1}}}

Answer 1

That isn't possible. You can't have a list of objects which isn't an array or array-type structure in JSON (which is just JavaScript).

If you edit your question to tell us why you are trying to achieve this, we may be able to help more.