What to return for jQuery's ajax data param in callback function?

Question

I use jQuery's ajax function to call a url asynchron like this:

jQuery.ajax({
    url: url,
    type: "GET",
    data: {key : value},
    success: function(data) {
        console.log(data);
    }
}

On the server side I don't know what to return to get something meaningful inside the variable data. The console's log is just empty string.

I already tried return 0, return 1, return array('status' => 1), return true

Background: I want to know if any exceptions have been thrown on the server side to pass something like false or true if it was successful without exceptions.

EDIT: Server side language is PHP

What server-side language are you using? does `return` in that language output html to the page? — Kevin B, Apr 08 '13 at 19:49
What is your server side language? PhP, Ruby, C#,..? Also, what does the server side method look like? — Nope, Apr 08 '13 at 19:49
@tester: `I don't know what to return to get something meaningful inside the variable data`. We commonly return a JSON object which contains the HTML or what ever data in one property, for example: `data.returnValue`, another property which contains an array of violation objects, i.e: `data.violations` and another containing a status like `Success/Error`, i.e: `data.status` (That one could be a boolean too I suppose). They are custom object we understand in the receiving end but you can design your own off course. — Nope, Apr 08 '13 at 19:54

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 08 '13 at 19:52

Assuming you are using PHP, you would just echo a string return value.

echo "true";
exit;

or

echo "false";
exit;

then you can parse that with jQuery:

if ( $.trim(data) == "true" ) {
    console.log("success!")
}
else {
    console.log(data);
}

You could also echo 0 or 1, but keep in mind it's still a string, not a number when it gets to jQuery. For more complex data, such as an array, you can json_encode it.

echo json_encode( $myarray );
exit;

and set your dataType to "json" in jQuery's $.ajax method.

we'd need to see your php then. – Kevin B Apr 08 '13 at 20:04 — Kevin B, Apr 08 '13 at 20:04

What to return for jQuery's ajax data param in callback function?

1 Answers1

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