Rails Serializer not returning valid JSON (keys not returned in quotes)

Question

Am having some trouble with a Rails Serializer in an API only app. The app is returning a javascript object where the keys are not enclosed in double quotation marks. Of note, the source API is returning a javascript object with keys not surrounded by quotes.

I've found two posts that seem to be related. The second answer here notes that if you receive an object that's not a string, you don't need to parse it, so I guess that's what's going on here, but I can't figure out what to use in place of JSON.parse response in my model. Another related post here; as suggested there, I've tried return JSON(response) instead of JSON.parse response, which also did not produce valid JSON. I see I can remove the each_serializer: KoboApiSerializer line in my Controller, and have tried doing that with the `return JSON(response) line in the Model.

Any suggestions on what I should do to produce a valid JSON result would be appreciated.

Model, Controller, returned JSON, and source JSON returned from API below. I also have included what is puts'd out to my terminal via the line in my controller. Thanks in advance.

Model:

class KoboApi < ActiveRecord::Base
    require 'rest_client'
    USERNAME = ENV['KOBO_API_USER']
    PASSWORD = ENV['KOBO_API_PWD']
    SURVEY = ENV['KOBO_API_SURVEY']
    API_BASE_URL = ENV['API_BASE_URL']
    def self.get_api_info
        uri = "#{API_BASE_URL}/data/#{SURVEY}?format=json"
        rest_resource = RestClient::Resource.new(uri, USERNAME, PASSWORD)
        response = rest_resource.get
        JSON.parse response
    end
end

Controller:

class KoboDataController < ApplicationController
    def index
        @kobo_info = KoboApi.get_api_info
        puts "@kobo_info: #{@kobo_info.inspect}" #values for this returned below.  this shows keys surround with quotes.
        @kobo_info.each do |kobo_info|
           #some records have NULL for the month_and_year date field.  this if then statement 
           date = if kobo_info['month_and_year']
                Date.parse(kobo_info['month_and_year'])
           else
                nil
           end
            KoboApi.where(lemurs_quantity: kobo_info['lemurs_quantity'], month_and_year: date, lemur_category: kobo_info['lemur_category'], location_admin1: kobo_info['location_admin1'], location_admin2: kobo_info['location_admin2']).first_or_create
        end
    render(
      json.KoboApi.all,
      each_serializer: KoboApiSerializer
    )
    end
end

example of object returned from my Rails API app

A serializer is in place (here "kobo_data"), so objects are grouped under that. Am including an example object from those returned - note that the object here doesn't necessarily match those I've posted from source API or from console - am including it to show that keys are not enclosed in quotations.

{
    kobo_data: [
        {
            lemurs_quantity: 20,
            month_and_year: "2016-03-01",
            lemur_category: "indri",
            location_admin1: "toliara",
            location_admin2: "androy"
        }
    ]
}

example of source json from API:

One object (of the many) returned from the source API. Values here don't match values those above or below - am just including to show that keys are not enclosed in double quotations.

[
    {
        location_admin1: "fianarantsoa",
        location_admin2: "atsimo-atsinanana",
        lemurs_quantity: "5",
        month_and_year: "2016-01-01",
        lemur_category: "brown_lemur",
    },
]

Putsing it to the terminal....

Values puts'ed out to my terminal via the line in my controller show that it appears to be a valid JSON object, with keys in quotations. As above, the values here do not match the values from my source data - this is just to show that returned values here are enclosed in quotations.

Processing by KoboDataController#index as HTML
@kobo_info: [{"location_admin1"=>"fianarantsoa", "location_admin2"=>"atsimo-atsinanana","lemurs_quantity"=>"5", "month_and_year"=>"2016-01-01","lemur_category"=>"brown_lemur"}

KoboApi Load (0.3ms)  SELECT  "kobo_apis".* FROM "kobo_apis" WHERE "kobo_apis"."lemurs_quantity" = $1 AND "kobo_apis"."month_and_year" = $2 AND "kobo_apis"."lemur_category" = $3 AND "kobo_apis"."location_admin1" = $4 AND "kobo_apis"."location_admin2" = $5  ORDER BY "kobo_apis"."id" ASC LIMIT 1  [["lemurs_quantity", 5], ["month_and_year", "2016-01-01"], ["lemur_category", "brown_lemur"], ["location_admin1", "fianarantsoa"], ["location_admin2", "atsimo-atsinanana"]]

Rails Serializer not returning valid JSON (keys not returned in quotes)

Answers (1)

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