How can I send JSON response in symfony2 controller

Question

I am using jQuery to edit my form which is built in Symfony.

I am showing the form in jQuery dialog and then submitting it.

Data is entering correctly in database.

But I don't know whether I need to send some JSON back to jQuery. Actually I am bit confused with JSON thing.

Suppose I have added a row in my table with ``jQuery and when I submit the form then after data is submitted I want to send back those row data so that I can dynamically add the table row to show the data added.

I am confused how can get that data back.

This is my current code:

$editForm = $this->createForm(new StepsType(), $entity);  $request = $this->getRequest();  $editForm->bindRequest($request);  if ($editForm->isValid()) {     $em->persist($entity);     $em->flush();      return $this->render('::success.html.twig');                } 

This is just the template with success message.

Answer 1

Symfony 2.1

$response = new Response(json_encode(array('name' => $name))); $response->headers->set('Content-Type', 'application/json');  return $response; 

---

Symfony 2.2 and higher

You have special JsonResponse class, which serialises array to JSON:

return new JsonResponse(array('name' => $name)); 

---

But if your problem is How to serialize entity then you should have a look at JMSSerializerBundle

Assuming that you have it installed, you'll have simply to do

$serializedEntity = $this->container->get('serializer')->serialize($entity, 'json');  return new Response($serializedEntity); 

You should also check for similar problems on StackOverflow:

• How to encode Doctrine entities to JSON in Symfony 2.0 AJAX application?
• Symfony 2 Doctrine export to JSON

Answer 2

Symfony 2.1 has a JsonResponse class.

return new JsonResponse(array('name' => $name)); 

The passed in array will be JSON encoded the status code will default to 200 and the content type will be set to application/json.

There is also a handy setCallback function for JSONP.