# I want more control of how my model gets serialized into XML. I was toying with an idea... along the lines of

class User
   property :user_name, String
   property :domain, String

   has_one :contact

   when_serializing :name => 'user', :show_id => 'true'

   serialize :user_name, :formats => [:xml,:json], :contexts => [:summary, :detailed]
   serialize :domain, :formats => [:xml], :contexts => [:detailed]
   serialize :contact, :formats => [:xml], :context => [:detailed]
end

class Contact
   property :first_name, String
   property :last_name, String

   serialize :first_name, :formats => [:xml,:json], :contexts => [:summary, :detailed]
   serialize :last_name, :formats => [:xml,:json], :contexts => [:summary,:detailed]
end

# and then you could do
User.first(:user_name => 'joe').to_xml(:detailed)

# or (with some magic on array)

User.all().to_xml(:summary)