Question

I have a form that asks the user to enter their Google Analytics code in a textarea. I then pass this string into ajax post and receive an error saying that I am passing an invalid object. (I am not pasting the whole error message here as it is quite long..)

The Google Analytics code, as expected, is in the form of following;

<script type="text/javascript">

  var _gaq = _gaq || [];
  _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'some_number']);
  _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

  (function() {
    var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
    ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
    var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
  })();

</script>

And I use this to post to server:

        $.ajax({
            type: "POST",
            url: "Settings.aspx/setStats",
            data: "{'skey': 'ga_code', 'sval':'" + el.val() + "'}",
            dataType: "json",
            contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8"
        }); // el.val() being the google analytics code..

How can I post this without the error? Also, I will need to get it as well, when the user needs to update it.. Will the same problem arise when receiving it too?

Answer 1

Your object as it stands is not so; it is a string, you are passing a string as an object.. try the following:

data: { skey: 'ga_code', sval: el.val() },

Usually objects are converted into query strings, as is said on the documentation page, but since you are passing a string to the converter, I believe it is not going to work.

Update:

It would appear I was a bit wrong; the above is not valid json, the following should work, as a correction to the above:

data: { "skey": "ga_code", "sval": el.val() }

Keys and values must be double-quoted, from what I am reading, though I’m a bit confused, as I have used json like I first gave you with no problems what-so-ever. Lastly, I would recommend this site to test if your JSON is valid.

If that still doesn’t work, then I would recommend changing your contentType to the following:

"application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=utf-8"