Cakephp3: How can I return json data?

Question

I am having a ajax post call to a cakePhp Controller:

$.ajax({
                type: \"POST\",
                url: \'locations/add\',
                data: {
           


        

Answer 1

Instead of returning the json_encode result, set the response body with that result and return it back.

public function add()
{
    $this->autoRender = false; // avoid to render view

    $location = $this->Locations->newEntity();
    if ($this->request->is('post')) {
        $location = $this->Locations->patchEntity($location, $this->request->data);
        if ($this->Locations->save($location)) {
            //$this->Flash->success(__('The location has been saved.'));
            //return $this->redirect(['action' => 'index']);
            $resultJ = json_encode(array('result' => 'success'));
            $this->response->type('json');
            $this->response->body($resultJ);
            return $this->response;
        } else {
            //$this->Flash->error(__('The location could not be saved. Please, try again.'));
            $resultJ = json_encode(array('result' => 'error', 'errors' => $location->errors()));

            $this->response->type('json');
            $this->response->body($resultJ);
            return $this->response;
        }
    }
    $this->set(compact('location'));
    $this->set('_serialize', ['location']);
}

Edit (credit to @Warren Sergent)

Since CakePHP 3.4, we should use

return $this->response->withType("application/json")->withStringBody(json_encode($result));

Instead of :

$this->response->type('json');
$this->response->body($resultJ);
return $this->response;

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