What is the proper way to ouput JSON from a custom Controller action

[Bogdan Tanase]

Hi everyone,

I want to expose an API from a custom module, so I've created a new controller with the actions I need but I'm a bit puzzled about the appropriate way to ouput the needed data in JSON format.

Do I need to create a separate view just for this or there's some nice helper in the Xenforo library?

class MyModule_ControllerPublic_Chat extends XenForo_ControllerPublic_Abstract {
    public function actionIndex()
    {
        $data = array('example_key' => 'example_value');
        $json = json_encode($data);
     
        // something like this would be nice :)
        // return $this->responseJson($json);
    }
}

 

[Mr. Goodie2Shoes]

Hello,
XenForo already has a view renderer for JSON... so what you have to do is:

class MyModule_ControllerPublic_Chat extends XenForo_ControllerPublic_Abstract
{
     public function actionIndex()
     {
         $data = array('example_key' => 'example_value');
         $this->_routeMatch->setResponseType('json');
         return $this->responseView('', '', $data);
    }
}

And you will get the json output

 

[Bogdan Tanase]

Hey, thanks for the quick response.

I've tried the example above but I get this output:

{"templateHtml":"","css":"","js":"","_visitor_conversationsUnread":"0","_visitor_alertsUnread":"0"}

 

[Mr. Goodie2Shoes]

oops... forgot about that
change the action return code to:

return $this->responseView('MyModule_ViewPublic_Chat_Index', '', $data);

create the file and add the following code:

class MyModule_ViewPublic_Chat_Index extends XenForo_ViewPublic_Base
{
    public function renderJson()
    {
        return json_encode($this->_params);
    }
}

 

[Bogdan Tanase]

Awesome. It works now. Thank you!