backprop

Backprop
========

A small Backbone plugin that lets you use ECMAScript 5 properties on your Backbone models.
Instead of doing:

``js
console.log(mymodel.get('name'));
mymodel.set('name', 'Bob');
`

with Backprop you can write this instead:

`js
console.log(mymodel.name);
mymodel.name = 'Bob';
`

You can install it from npm with npm install backprop.

Usage
-----

Initialize the plugin with:

`js
Backprop.monkeypatch(Backbone);
`

This will replace Backbone.Model.extend with a version that creates the properties,
and creates Backbone.property, a function that you can use to define properties
on your models.

Then in your models write something like:

`js
var User = Backbone.Model.extend({
name: Backbone.property({ default: 'Jonas', coerce: String }),
numFollowers: Backbone.property({ default: 0, coerce: Number });
});
`

Also, Backprop is CommonJS-friendly, so you can use it in Node or with client-side
module systems like Browserify:

`js
var Backprop = require('backprop');
`

Backbone.property() arguments
-----------------------------

Backbone.property takes an optional hash as its only argument, and the following
keys are supported to make dealing with properties a bit more pleasant:

default
Lets you specify a default value for the property. This will override anything that
was set in the defaults hash for this attribute name. Basically just a convenient
shorthand so you can keep your default value close to the property definition.


coerce
Specify a function that coerces the property's value any time it is set. For example:

`
var Cat = Backbone.Model.extend({
name: Backbone.property({ coerce: String }),
lives: Backbone.property({ coerce: Number })
});
var c = new Cat;

c.name = 42;
console.log(c.name === '42') // prints true

c.lives = '9';
console.log(c.lives === 9) // prints true
`


Running tests
-------------

`
git clone git://github.com/af/backprop.git
cd backprop
npm test
``

Credits
-------

Partial inspiration came from this gist:
https://gist.github.com/dandean/1292057