Submitting jQuery.ajax data with string containing "???" it changes value to "jQuery19107363727174233645_1373301489648?"

Question

Page side javascript:

var model = {"NumberOfCPUs":"2","NumberOfCores":"4","OSType":"Linux","OSVersion":"???"};

        var id = 0;
        var success = false;
        //send to server:
        $.ajax(
            {
                async: false,
                data: JSON.stringify(model),
                dataType: "json",
                type: "post",
                url: serverSideURL

            });

The contents of the request that actually gets sent to the server:

{"NumberOfCPUs":"2","NumberOfCores":"4","OSType":"Linux","OSVersion":"jQuery19107363727174233645_1373301489648?"}

What is happening? Is the string "???" some sort of special control word or something in jQuery?

Thanks.

Answer 1

If I read through the comments of the bugs in the other answers, the real problem lies in the fact that you stringify your json-string before passing it to data. data expects either a String containing a query (e.g. "a=asdf&b=qwer" or an Object containing the keys and values that it will turn into a query). You are instead passing something like '{"a":"asdf","b":"qwer"}', a String containing a stringified array that is not a query. It somehow manages to convert in data the server understands, but apparently triggers that bug/feature too.

Solution 1

If you want to access the data via $_POST['a'] to get key "a" in your JSON-object:

$.ajax( {
    async: false,
    data: model, //Pass the Array itself to the function
    dataType: "json",
    type: "post",
    url: serverSideURL
});

(Source; Cowboy on jQuery bugs)

Solution 2

If you want to retrieve the JSON-string:

$.ajax( {
    async: false,
    data: {
      "MyLilString": JSON.stringify( model )
    }
    dataType: "json",
    type: "post",
    url: serverSideURL
});

In this case $_POST["MyLilString"] contains the serialized JSON, which you can use json_decode() on.

(Source; Ajpiano on jQuery bugs)

Another sugestion

Another suggestion I did extract from the comments (but I am now unable to find -_-') is to set jsonp to false.

$.ajax( {
    async: false,
    data: model
    dataType: "json",
    type: "post",
    url: serverSideURL,
    jsonp: false
});

This should stop jQuery from inserting the callback function into the request body too.