Question

I followed this tutorial to set up my REST webservice for JSON and XML. XML outputs properly but when I make a JSON call I get the view not found display from Cake.

To do this I added the following code in my AppController:

     if ( $this->RequestHandler->isAjax() ) {
        //Configure::write ( 'debug', 0 );
        $this->layout = 'ajax';
        $this->autoRender = false;      
      } elseif  ($this->RequestHandler->isXml()) {
        $this->layout = 'default';      
        //Configure::write ( 'debug', 0 );
      } elseif ($this->RequestHandler->ext == 'json') { 
        $this->RequestHandler->setContent('json','text/x-json');  
        $this->layout = 'default';      
      } elseif ($this->RequestHandler->accepts('html')) {
        $this->layout = 'frontend';     
      }

And this is an example of the code in one of my controller methods:

      if ($this->RequestHandler->isXml()) {
        $voicenote = $voicenote['Voicenote'];
        $this->set(compact('voicenote'));
      } else if ($this->RequestHandler->ext == 'json') {
        $voicenote = $voicenote['Voicenote'];
        pr($voicenote);
        echo json_encode(array('voicenote' => $voicenote));                                                                                                                                             
      } else {
        $this->set(compact('voicenote', 'tiny_list'));                                                                                                                                                  
      }

XML displays properly, it’s just JSON that’s the issue.

Answer 1

The issue is that auto-render is only being disabled if the request is performed via an AJAX request.
When entering the address in a browser address bar, after the echo json_encode(); call, the controller will continue on in the render pipeline, looking for an action and layout template to output.

---

I would suggest being consistent between your XML and JSON rendering, and output both through template files and not disable autoRender for AJAX requests.

AppController:

if  ($this->RequestHandler->isXml()) { // Allow a json request to specify XML formatting
  $this->RequestHandler->respondAs('xml'); // for setting headers
  $this->RequestHandler->renderAs($this, 'xml'); // for specifying templates for rendering
} elseif ($this->RequestHandler->ext == 'json'|| $this->RequestHandler->isAjax()){ // 'action' ajax requests and all 'action.json' requests receive JSON
  $this->RequestHandler->respondAs('json');
  $this->RequestHandler->renderAs($this, 'json');
}
// Other requests will fall through to the default HTML rendering

Your controller only needs to set the data, and each view template will format it as necessary:

function action() {
  // ...
  $voicenote = $voicenote['Voicenote'];
  $this->set(compact('voicenote', 'tiny_list'));                                                                                
}

The JSON templates will be relatively simple, create as required by the error messages.
Layout:

<?php echo $content_for_layout; ?>

JSON Action (app/views/controller/json/action.ctp)

<?php echo json_encode(array('voicenote' => $voicenote)); ?>

---

Check out the CakePHP RequestHandler documentation for more help