jQuery posting valid json in request body

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4159701/jquery-posting-valid-json-in-request-body

jQuery posting valid json in request body

Ask Question

up vote 98 down vote favorite 21

So according to the jQuery Ajax docs, it serializes data in the form of a query string when sending requests, but setting processData:false should allow me to send actual JSON in the body. Unfortunately I'm having a hard time determining first, if this is happening and 2nd what the object looks like that is being sent to the server. All I know is that the server is not parsing what I'm sending. Using http client when posting an object literal {someKey:'someData'} it works. but using jQuery with data: {someKey:'someData'} it fails. Unfortunately when i analyze the request in safari, it says the message payload is [object Object] ... great... and in Firefox the post is blank... When logging the body content on the java side it literally gets [object Object] so how does one send REAL json data?? Has anyone had experience with a Java service serializing json data in the request body, with the request sent from jQuery? BTW here is the full $.ajax request: $.ajax({ contentType: 'application/json', data: { "command": "on" }, dataType: 'json', success: function(data){ app.log("device control succeeded"); }, error: function(){ app.log("Device control failed"); }, processData: false, type: 'POST', url: '/devices/{device_id}/control' }); jquery  ajax  json  xmlhttprequest share improve this question asked  Nov 11 '10 at 22:02 brad 16.5k 19 81 138

add a comment

1 Answer

active oldest votes

up vote 167 down vote accepted

An actual JSON request would look like this: data: '{"command":"on"}', Where you're sending an actual JSON string. For a more general solution, use JSON.stringify() to serialize an object to JSON, like this: data: JSON.stringify({ "command": "on" }), To support older browsers that don't have the JSON object, use json2.js which will add it in. What's currently happening is since you have processData: false, it's basically sending this: ({"command":"on"}).toString() which is [object Object]...what you see in your request. share improve this answer answered  Nov 11 '10 at 22:06 Nick Craver ♦ 449k 93 1090 1031

so do I no longer need the processData: false using JSON.stringify() ? –  brad  Nov 11 '10 at 22:19 4   @brad - correct, it won't matter after doing this because it's already a string, and in that case jQuery won't process it further. –  Nick Craver♦  Nov 11 '10 at 22:23  worked like a charm, many thanks! Is it true then that all request bodies are expected to be strings that get parsed on the other end? –  brad  Nov 12 '10 at 14:28 @brad - yup, correct again :) –  Nick Craver♦  Nov 12 '10 at 14:35 Great answer Nick. Thanks! –  Kirk  Jan 14 '13 at 4:51 show 2 more comments