Serde

Serde is a framework for serializing and deserializing Rust data structures efficiently and generically.

We are going to use it to add serialization and deserialization support to our models.

Adding the dependency

Let's add the serde dependency to the Cargo.toml file of the shared crate:

[dependencies]
+ serde = { version = "1.0", features = ["derive"] }

Adding the derive feature will allow us to use the #[derive(Serialize, Deserialize)] macro on our models, which will automatically implement the Serialize and Deserialize traits for us.

As we will be working with JSON in our API, we need to bring in the serde_json crate as well in the Cargo.toml file of the api-lib crate:

[dependencies]
+ # serde
+ serde = "1.0"
+ serde_json = "1.0"

Adding the Serialize and Deserialize traits to our models

Let's add the Serialize and Deserialize traits to our Film and CreateFilm models.

For that, we are going to use the derive macro:

+ use serde::{Deserialize, Serialize};

+ #[derive(Serialize, Deserialize, Debug, Clone, PartialEq, Eq, PartialOrd, Ord, Default)]
pub struct Film {
    pub id: uuid::Uuid, // we will be using uuids as ids
    pub title: String,
    pub director: String,
    pub year: u16,      // only positive numbers
    pub poster: String, // we will use the url of the poster here
    pub created_at: Option<chrono::DateTime<chrono::Utc>>,
    pub updated_at: Option<chrono::DateTime<chrono::Utc>>,
}

+ #[derive(Serialize, Deserialize, Debug, Clone, PartialEq, Eq, PartialOrd, Ord, Default)]
pub struct CreateFilm {
    pub title: String,
    pub director: String,
    pub year: u16,
    pub poster: String,
}

Commit your changes:

git add .
git commit -m "add serde dependency and derive traits"