Question

I use JQuery AJAX to retrieve some data (title and description). As you can see I get a json array and loop through the results and out the results in a div tag

        success : function(jsonArray)
        {

            $.each(jsonArray,function(messageIndex,jsonObject)
            {
               $("#results").append(jsonObject.title + " " + jsonObject.description);
             })

        }

The JSONArray contains JSON Objects like so:

title       : test Title 1
description : test Description 1

title       : test Title 2
description : test Description 2

The JSONArray is created by a backend application I have and then the results passed to the client (JQuery AJAX). The backend is also responsible for displaying a button if it can. How can I let the client know whether to show the button or not?

I was thinking of having another JSONObject which has details about the button to show.
For example the JSONObject would be something like

showButton: false
colour    : red
size      : 50px

The problem is that I’m not sure how to represent this in my JQuery AJAX success. Currently all I’m given is a JSONArray that loops through the objects but how will it know that it hits the button json object?

Do I need to make another AJAX call to get the object?

Answer 1

Your current object structure is something like:

[ { "title" : "...", "description" : "..." } , ... ]

Instead you can have your backend return a structure something like this:

{
   "data" : [ { "title" : "...", "description" : "..." } , ... ],
   "button" : { "showbutton" : false, "colour" : "red", "size" : "50px" }
}

Then in your callback function:

success : function(response) {
   $.each(response.data, function(messageIndex,jsonObject) {
      $("#results").append(jsonObject.title + " " + jsonObject.description);
   });

   if (response.button.showbutton) {
      // create button using response.button.colour and response.button.size
   }
}

(Note that JSON is a string representation used to send the data, but once it’s been parsed and you start using it in your success function it is not JSON or a “JSON object” or “JSON array”, it is just an object or array.)