Is there any way to non-verbosely output all dependencies using to_json?

Question

In Rails apps, I find myself placing a lot of nested :include => statements in my JSON rendering code to include objects with relationships(direct and indirect) to the root object. Is there any way to get to_json(or a similar method) to automatically include all related objects without explicitly specifying them?

Answer 1

Sure, override the #to_json method:

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
   def to_json(options={})
     super(options.merge(:include => :comments, :methods => [:arbitrary_field]))
   end
end