Media Types in all backbone.js REST requests

Question

I've got an API setup which uses Media Types in the Accept header for all requests. Getting started I just simply wrapped the fetch and save functions of models, but I was curious if there was a better way rather than having to do that in every model and collection?

Update

var accountsCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
    model: accountModel,
    url: '/api/accounts',
    vnd: 'application/vnd.app.AccountFeed+json',
    return resp.Items;
    },
    search: function (q) {
        this.fetch({
            headers: { Accept: this.vnd },
            data: {
                q: q
            },
            success: function (data) {
                //console.log(q);
            }
        });
    }
});

As in the above example, I'm having to wrap the fetch because of the need to have a custom Accept header. In my opinion a perfect solution would be to be able to extend fetch & save to automatically pull the vnd value of the Collection or Model. I hope this better clarifies what I was asking.

Answer 1

Backbone uses the notion of a sync adapter in order to customize your CRUD operation. Each collection/model can has its own sync method which could apply your custom http adapter.

Your code could look like:

var MyModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
    sync: function(method, model, options) {
        var options = options || {};
        options.Accept = model.vnd;
        return Backbone.sync(method, model, options);
    }
});

Answer 2

Riffing off of Uzi's answer, you might also consider providing your own Backbone.sync function. Model.fetch() ends up delegated to the über-sync function, meaning that a patch there to include the Accept header will ensure the header gets passed along with every request your application makes.

A good example of modifying Backbone.sync can be found in the annotated source of the Backbone/localStorage demo.