Question

I’m sending information back-and-forth between a Rails controller and a JS file.

1. I’m sending the form to the controller through JS (works)

   $("#help-email-submit").ajaxSubmit({url: '/help/send_help_email', type: 'post' });
   

2. I’m able to catch the event in the controller (works)

   def send_help_email
     ....
   end
   

3. In the same JS file that sent the above request, how do I capture the JSON response (below)? (doesn’t work)

   def send_help_email
     ...
     cst_str = @current_support_ticket.to_s
     respond_to do |format|
       format.json { render :json => cst_str }
     end
   end
   

   In the JS file

   var xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
   alert(xmlhttp.responseText);
   

---

UPDATE

I noticed a JS error that is preventing the success: function from executing:

Error

TypeError: ‘undefined’ is not a function (evaluating ‘$(“#help-email- form”).ajaxSubmit({url: ‘/help/send_help_email’, type: ‘post’, complete: handlerResponse })’)

This is the line that is triggering the error

$("#help-email-form").ajaxSubmit({url: '/help/send_help_email', type: 'post', complete: handlerResponse })

This is complete block

var handlerResponse = function(data) {
alert(data);
};

$('#help-email-submit').live('click', function(e) {
    $('#sender-email-wrapper').fadeOut('fast', function() {
        $("#help-email-sent").fadeIn('slow');
    });
    $("#help-email-form").ajaxSubmit({url: '/help/send_help_email', type: 'post', complete: handlerResponse })
    e.preventDefault();
});

Answer 1

According to ajaxSubmit documentation, it accepts the same options that the jQuery.ajax method. So, to get the response, you can pass the complete callback to the call:

var handleResponse = function(data) {
  // Use response here
};

$("#help-email-submit").ajaxSubmit({url: '/help/send_help_email', type: 'post', complete: handleResponse });

Depending on the version of jQuery that you are using, you can also pass the callback through the complete method on the return value from jQuery.ajax:

$("#help-email-submit").ajaxSubmit({url: '/help/send_help_email', type: 'post'}).complete(function(data) {
  // Use response here
});