How to response ajax?

Question

I've got field which makes ajax request on user input, and I want to response to it with json object. I use jQuery function $.getJSON with url ?page=answersearch, but it doesn't work. Instead of answering with json type data, it sends text/html type data. How to do it?

Answer 1

If you are getting a string of text back from an AJAX request, regardless of the declared MIME-type, you may make use of jQuery's $.parseJSON function.

$.ajax({
    url: '/someurl',
    type: 'get',
    data: {
        page: 'answersearch'
    },
    success: function(rsp) {
        if (typeof rsp === 'string') {
            rsp = $.parseJSON(rsp);
        }
        // rsp has been changed from a string into an object.
    }
});

Also, on the server side, you may wish to set the Content-Type header:

header('Content-Type: text/json')

It's not 100% necessary, however.