Chrome extension converting backbone.js collections to regular JavaScript array

Question

In my background script:

var collection = Backbone.Collection.extend({});

chrome.extension.onRequest.addListener(function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
  sendResponse(new collection());
}

In my browser_action's javascript:

chrome.tabs.getSelected(null, function(tab) {
  chrome.extension.sendRequest({
    action: "someAction",
    tab: tab 
  },  
  function(collection) {
    // collection is now a JS array, rather than Backbone.Collection
  }); 
}); 

As mentioned in the comment above the 'collection' argument in the sendRequest callback turns out to be a regular JS array, rather than Backbone.Collection.

Is this a sanitisation artefact / security measure taken by chromium? Is there any way to pass a Backbone.Collection via sendRequest?

Answer 1

From the onRequest documentation it says that the argument to sendResponse should be a JSON-ifiable object, so I'm assuming that the Collection's toJSON method is being called, leaving you with just the data.

If you have the Collection definition in the target script you could instantiate a new object with the same data.