Javascript / Client Side Development :: Stuffing JSON for an AJAX response


	Stuffing JSON for an AJAX response I'm fairly new to using AJAX. I'm currently developing a data grid application in coldfusion, using AJAX for paging/filter/sorting updates to the grid. So far I've just been returning raw html, and updating the innerHTML of a div on the page when the response comes back. But now I've decided it would be useful to split my response into (at least) two parts. The first will be the raw HTML to place in the div. The second part will be separate data that will run through a javascript function to update some values on the page. The details aren't too important, but the idea is that instead of a single block of text, I'd like to be able to send two distinct blocks with the ajax response. In playing around with JSON a bit, I've got it working for a simple structure like this: {html:"some html", javascript:"some javascript to execute" } I can reference those after evaling the response, and use the text. The problem comes when I actually place myt HTML into the JSON object. It's kind of a lot of HTML, and something seems to be breaking in the response. It seems to be hanging during the eval process on the response, though I can't see why. Is it a horrible idea to try to pass html within a JSON object? Is there a way to encode or escape the text beforehand so that it can be passed properly? Thanks. On May 12, 12:00 am, dan.goye@gmail.com wrote: - Hide quoted text - > I'm fairly new to using AJAX. I'm currently developing a data grid > application in coldfusion, using AJAX for paging/filter/sorting > updates to the grid. So far I've just been returning raw html, and > updating the innerHTML of a div on the page when the response comes > back. > But now I've decided it would be useful to split my response into (at > least) two parts. The first will be the raw HTML to place in the div. > The second part will be separate data that will run through a > javascript function to update some values on the page. The details > aren't too important, but the idea is that instead of a single block > of text, I'd like to be able to send two distinct blocks with the ajax > response. > In playing around with JSON a bit, I've got it working for a simple > structure like this: > {html:"some html", > javascript:"some javascript to execute" > } > I can reference those after evaling the response, and use the text. > The problem comes when I actually place myt HTML into the JSON object. > It's kind of a lot of HTML, and something seems to be breaking in the > response. It seems to be hanging during the eval process on the > response, though I can't see why. > Is it a horrible idea to try to pass html within a JSON object? Is > there a way to encode or escape the text beforehand so that it can be > passed properly? > Thanks. I don't know much about coldfusion, in fact I know next to nothing, but I see no reason why you can pass HTML inside of a JSON object. After all, what is HTML? It's simply a string of characters. It's how you hand it that matters. I guess the preference would be to use XML. I have done quite a few projects that start out with a simple HTML template (most of which is hidden), ajax is then used to get the data to fill it, or get a small amount of HTML to insert. I've never had any problems. How are you trying to parse the HTML? I usually use innerHTML (which is bad practice, but works for the small jobs I use it for). Can you not use innerHTML? It's a little unreliable in the sense that if there's an error in the code, it won't appear correctly when inserted, but I have never actually evaled the HTML, only the JSON object. If this is what you are doing, then you need to make sure that you use the correct quotes. '<html><head></head><body style="color:blue;"></body></html>' will work, whereas "<html><head></head><body style='color:blue;'></body></ html>" will not. You need to make sure that the HTML isn't actually being parsed, by making sure it's encapsulated in a string, and any characters that need to be escaped, are escaped. Hope this helps. Daz.