[jquery] Jquery - How to make $.post() use contentType=application/json?

I've noticed that when using $.post() in jquery that the default contentType is application/x-www-form-urlencoded - when my asp.net mvc code needs to have contentType=application/json

(See this question for why I must use application/json: ASPNET MVC - Why is ModelState.IsValid false "The x field is required" when that field does have a value?)

How can I make $.post() send contentType=application/json? I already have a large number of $.post() functions, so I don't want to change to $.ajax() because it would take too much time

If I try

$.post(url, data, function(), "json") 

It still has contentType=application/x-www-form-urlencoded. So what exactly does the "json" param do if it does not change the contenttype to json?

If I try

$.ajaxSetup({
  contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8"
});

That works but affects every single $.get and $.post that I have and causes some to break.

So is there some way that I can change the behavior of $.post() to send contentType=application/json?

I know this is a late answer, I actually have a shortcut method that I use for posting/reading to/from MS based services.. it works with MVC as well as ASMX etc...

Use:

$.msajax(
  '/services/someservice.asmx/SomeMethod'
  ,{}  /*empty object for nothing, or object to send as Application/JSON */
  ,function(data,jqXHR) {
    //use the data from the response.
  }
  ,function(err,jqXHR) {
    //additional error handling.
  }
);

//sends a json request to an ASMX or WCF service configured to reply to JSON requests.
(function ($) {
  var tries = 0; //IE9 seems to error out the first ajax call sometimes... will retry up to 5 times

  $.msajax = function (url, data, onSuccess, onError) {
    return $.ajax({
      'type': "POST"
      , 'url': url
      , 'contentType': "application/json"
      , 'dataType': "json"
      , 'data': typeof data == "string" ? data : JSON.stringify(data || {})
      ,beforeSend: function(jqXHR) {
        jqXHR.setRequestHeader("X-MicrosoftAjax","Delta=true");
      }
      , 'complete': function(jqXHR, textStatus) {
        handleResponse(jqXHR, textStatus, onSuccess, onError, function(){
          setTimeout(function(){
            $.msajax(url, data, onSuccess, onError);
          }, 100 * tries); //try again
        });
      }
    });
  }

  $.msajax.defaultErrorMessage = "Error retreiving data.";


  function logError(err, errorHandler, jqXHR) {
    tries = 0; //reset counter - handling error response

    //normalize error message
    if (typeof err == "string") err = { 'Message': err };

    if (console && console.debug && console.dir) {
      console.debug("ERROR processing jQuery.msajax request.");
      console.dir({ 'details': { 'error': err, 'jqXHR':jqXHR } });
    }

    try {
      errorHandler(err, jqXHR);
    } catch (e) {}
    return;
  }


  function handleResponse(jqXHR, textStatus, onSuccess, onError, onRetry) {
    var ret = null;
    var reterr = null;
    try {
      //error from jqXHR
      if (textStatus == "error") {
        var errmsg = $.msajax.defaultErrorMessage || "Error retreiving data.";

        //check for error response from the server
        if (jqXHR.status >= 300 && jqXHR.status < 600) {
          return logError( jqXHR.statusText || msg, onError, jqXHR);
        }

        if (tries++ < 5) return onRetry();

        return logError( msg, onError, jqXHR);
      }

      //not an error response, reset try counter
      tries = 0;

      //check for a redirect from server (usually authentication token expiration).
      if (jqXHR.responseText.indexOf("|pageRedirect||") > 0) {
        location.href = decodeURIComponent(jqXHR.responseText.split("|pageRedirect||")[1].split("|")[0]).split('?')[0];
        return;
      }

      //parse response using ajax enabled parser (if available)
      ret = ((JSON && JSON.parseAjax) || $.parseJSON)(jqXHR.responseText);

      //invalid response
      if (!ret) throw jqXHR.responseText;  

      // d property wrap as of .Net 3.5
      if (ret.d) ret = ret.d;

      //has an error
      reterr = (ret && (ret.error || ret.Error)) || null; //specifically returned an "error"

      if (ret && ret.ExceptionType) { //Microsoft Webservice Exception Response
        reterr = ret
      }

    } catch (err) {
      reterr = {
        'Message': $.msajax.defaultErrorMessage || "Error retreiving data."
        ,'debug': err
      }
    }

    //perform final logic outside try/catch, was catching error in onSuccess/onError callbacks
    if (reterr) {
      logError(reterr, onError, jqXHR);
      return;
    }

    onSuccess(ret, jqXHR);
  }

} (jQuery));

NOTE: I also have a JSON.parseAjax method that is modified from json.org's JS file, that adds handling for the MS "/Date(...)/" dates...

The modified json2.js file isn't included, it uses the script based parser in the case of IE8, as there are instances where the native parser breaks when you extend the prototype of array and/or object, etc.

I've been considering revamping this code to implement the promises interfaces, but it's worked really well for me.

How about your own adapter/wrapper ?

//adapter.js
var adapter = (function() {

return {

    post: function (url, params) {
        adapter.ajax(url, "post", params);
        },
    get: function (url, params) {
        adapter.ajax(url, "get", params);
    },
    put: function (url, params) {
        adapter.ajax(url, "put", params);
    },
    delete: function (url, params) {
        adapter.ajax(url, "delete", params);
    },
    ajax: function (url, type, params) {
        var ajaxOptions = {
            type: type.toUpperCase(),
            url: url,
            success: function (data, status) {
                var msgType = "";
                // checkStatus here if you haven't include data.success = true in your
                // response object
                if ((params.checkStatus && status) || 
                   (data.success && data.success == true)) {
                            msgType = "success";
                            params.onSuccess && params.onSuccess(data);
                    } else {
                            msgType = "danger";
                            params.onError && params.onError(data);
                    }
            },
            error: function (xhr) {
                    params.onXHRError && params.onXHRError();
                    //api.showNotificationWindow(xhr.statusText, "danger");
            }
        };
        if (params.data) ajaxOptions.data = params.data;
        if (api.isJSON(params.data)) {
            ajaxOptions.contentType = "application/json; charset=utf-8";
            ajaxOptions.dataType = "json";
        }
        $.ajax($.extend(ajaxOptions, params.options));
    }
})();

    //api.js
var api = {
  return {
    isJSON: function (json) {
        try {
            var o = JSON.parse(json);
            if (o && typeof o === "object" && o !== null) return true;
        } catch (e) {}
        return false;
    }
  }
})();

And extremely simple usage:

adapter.post("where/to/go", {
    data: JSON.stringify(params),
    onSuccess: function (data) {
        //on success response...
    }
    //, onError: function(data) {  //on error response... }
    //, onXHRError: function(xhr) {  //on XHR error response... }
});

$.ajax({
  url:url,
  type:"POST",
  data:data,
  contentType:"application/json; charset=utf-8",
  dataType:"json",
  success: function(){
    ...
  }
})

See : jQuery.ajax()

This simple jquery API extention (from: https://benjamin-schweizer.de/jquerypostjson.html) for $.postJSON() does the trick. You can use postJSON() like every other native jquery Ajax call. You can attach event handlers and so on.

$.postJSON = function(url, data, callback) {
  return jQuery.ajax({
    'type': 'POST',
    'url': url,
    'contentType': 'application/json; charset=utf-8',
    'data': JSON.stringify(data),
    'dataType': 'json',
    'success': callback
  });
};

Like other Ajax APIs (like $http from AngularJS) it sets the correct contentType to application/json. You can pass your json data (javascript objects) directly, since it gets stringified here. The expected returned dataType is set to JSON. You can attach jquery's default event handlers for promises, for example:

$.postJSON(apiURL, jsonData)
 .fail(function(res) {
   console.error(res.responseText);
 })
 .always(function() {
   console.log("FINISHED ajax post, hide the loading throbber");
 });

The "json" datatype that you can pass as the last parameter to post() indicates what type of data the function is expecting in the server's response, not what type it's sending in the request. Specifically it sets the "Accept" header.

Honestly your best bet is to switch to an ajax() call. The post() function is meant as a convenience; a simplified version of the ajax() call for when you are just doing a simple form posting. You aren't.

If you really don't want to switch, you could make your own function called, say, xpost(), and have it simply transform the given parameters into parameters for a jQuery ajax() call, with the content-type set. That way, rather than rewriting all of those post() functions into ajax() functions, you just have to change them all from post to xpost (or whatever).

At the heart of the matter is the fact that JQuery at the time of writing does not have a postJSON method while getJSON exists and does the right thing.

a postJSON method would do the following:

postJSON = function(url,data){
    return $.ajax({url:url,data:JSON.stringify(data),type:'POST', contentType:'application/json'});
};

and can be used like this:

postJSON( 'path/to/server', my_JS_Object_or_Array )
    .done(function (data) {
        //do something useful with server returned data
        console.log(data);
    })
    .fail(function (response, status) {
        //handle error response
    })
    .always(function(){  
      //do something useful in either case
      //like remove the spinner
    });

Finally I found the solution, that works for me:

jQuery.ajax ({
    url: myurl,
    type: "POST",
    data: JSON.stringify({data:"test"}),
    dataType: "json",
    contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
    success: function(){
        //
    }
});

I ended up adding the following method to jQuery in my script:

jQuery["postJSON"] = function( url, data, callback ) {
    // shift arguments if data argument was omitted
    if ( jQuery.isFunction( data ) ) {
        callback = data;
        data = undefined;
    }

    return jQuery.ajax({
        url: url,
        type: "POST",
        contentType:"application/json; charset=utf-8",
        dataType: "json",
        data: data,
        success: callback
    });
};

And to use it

$.postJSON('http://url', {data: 'goes', here: 'yey'}, function (data, status, xhr) {
    alert('Nailed it!')
});

This was done by simply copying the code of "get" and "post" from the original JQuery sources and hardcoding a few parameters to force a JSON POST.

Thanks!

Guess what? @BenCreasy was totally right!!

Starting version 1.12.0 of jQuery we can do this:

$.post({
    url: yourURL,
    data: yourData,
    contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8'
})
    .done(function (response) {
        //Do something on success response...
    });

I just tested it and it worked!!

I had a similar issue with the following JavaScript code:

var url = 'http://my-host-name.com/api/Rating';

var rating = { 
  value: 5,
  maxValue: 10
};

$.post(url, JSON.stringify(rating), showSavedNotification);

Where in the Fiddler I could see the request with:

• Header: Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8
• Body: {"value":"5","maxValue":"5"}

As a result, my server couldn't map an object to a server-side type.

After changing the last line to this one:

$.post(url, rating, showSavedNotification);

In the Fiddler I could still see:

• Header: Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8
• Body: value=5&maxValue=10

However, the server started returning what I expected.

we can change Content-type like this in $.post

$.post(url,data, function (data, status, xhr) { xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=utf-8");});

For some reason, setting the content type on the ajax request as @Adrien suggested didn't work in my case. However, you actually can change content type using $.post by doing this before:

$.ajaxSetup({
    'beforeSend' : function(xhr) {
        xhr.overrideMimeType('application/json; charset=utf-8');
    },
});

Then make your $.post call:

$.post(url, data, function(), "json")

I had trouble with jQuery + IIS, and this was the only solution that helped jQuery understand to use windows-1252 encoding for ajax requests.

The documentation currently shows that as of 3.0, $.post will accept the settings object, meaning that you can use the $.ajax options. 3.0 is not released yet and on the commit they're talking about hiding the reference to it in the docs, but look for it in the future!

$.post does not work if you have CORS (Cross Origin Resource Sharing) issue. Try to use $.ajax in following format:

$.ajax({
        url: someurl,
        contentType: 'application/json',
        data: requestInJSONFormat,
        headers: { 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*' },
        dataType: 'json',
        type: 'POST',
        async: false,
        success: function (Data) {...}
});

use just

jQuery.ajax ({
    url: myurl,
    type: "POST",
    data: mydata,
    dataType: "json",
    contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
    success: function(){
        //
    }
});

UPDATED @JK: If you write in your question only one code example with $.post you find one corresponding example in the answer. I don't want to repeat the same information which you already studied till know: $.post and $.get are short forms of $.ajax. So just use $.ajax and you can use the full set of it's parameters without having to change any global settings.

By the way I wouldn't recommend overwriting the standard $.post. It's my personal opinion, but for me it's important, not only that the program works, but also that all who read your program understand it with the same way. Overwriting standard methods without having a very important reason can follow to misunderstanding in reading of the program code. So I repeat my recommendation one more time: just use the original $.ajax form jQuery instead of jQuery.get and jQuery.post and you receive programs which not only perfectly work, but can be read by people without any misunderstandings.

You can't send application/json directly -- it has to be a parameter of a GET/POST request.

So something like

$.post(url, {json: "...json..."}, function());