JSON generation

test.rb

#ruby 1.9.2
require 'json'

class Item
  def initialize(name, description )
    @name = name
    @description = description
  end
  def to_json(*a)
    {"name" => @name, "description" => @description}.to_json(*a)
  end

end

item = Item.new("Grain", "Base and Specialty Malts")
puts item.to_json(:only => [:name])
# {"name":"Grain","description":"Base and Specialty Malts"}