Render JSON instead of HTML as default?

Question

I try to tell rails 3.2 that it should render JSON by default, and kick HTML completely like this:

respond_to :json      def index   @clients = Client.all   respond_with @clients end 

With this syntax, I have to add .json to the URL. How can I achieve it?

Answer 1

You can modify your routes.rb files to specify the default format

routes.rb

resources :clients, defaults: {format: :json} 

This will modify the default response format for your entire clients_controller

Answer 2

This pattern works well if you want to use the same controller actions for both. Make a web version as usual, using :html as the default format. Then, tuck the api under a path and set :json as the default there.

Rails.application.routes.draw do    resources :products    scope "/api", defaults: {format: :json} do     resources :products   end  end