Handle json array CAKEPHP - json

Question

Here's my javascript snipet
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
$('form#FormId button.btn').click(function(event){
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "/controller/edit",
data: $("#FormId").serialize(),
success: function(response) {
alert(response.message);
alert(response['message']);
}
});
});
});
Here's my controller action
public function edit() {
$this->autoRender = false; // We don't render a view in this example
$this->request->onlyAllow('ajax'); // No direct access via browser URL
echo json_encode(array('message'=>'Welcome','type'=>'success'));
exit;
}
Both alerts on the javascript are returning "undefined" how to handle?

Answer 1

So nobody is getting this correct.
You need to use the JSON view
See how to enable with this section
class PostsController extends AppController {
public $components = array('RequestHandler');
public function index() {
$this->request->onlyAllow('ajax');
$this->set(array(
'data' => array('message'=>'Welcome','type'=>'success'),
'_serialize' => 'data',
));
}
}
Cake will now automatically set the correct headers, serialize as JSON and not render the layout.
As a side note, your code alert(response.message); does not work beacuse response is a string. your header is text/html not application/json. Try console.log(response) and you will see it is just a string.

Answer 2

I get this to work using the following code in the controller
public function edit()
{
$this->RequestHandler->respondAs('json'); // Very important without this it will not work
$this->autoRender = false;
$data = array('message'=>'Welcome','type'=>'success');
return json_encode($data);
}

Answer 3

try add
dataType: 'json',
to your ajax method.
if it not work, try this:
add
$this->response->type('text/plain');
to your index method.
ie brower did not know json format text.
and what broswer did you used for this test? use F12 open the developer kit to check what the server response, is it a objct

Answer 4

From my experience echoing content doesn't work. You should instead return the json_encoded data.
This will make your edit() function look like this:
public function edit()
{
$this->autoRender = false;
$this->request->onlyAllow('ajax');
return json_encode(array('message' => 'Welcome', 'type' => 'success'));
}
To make sure it works; just alert the whole response object to see what is returned.