CherryPy How to respond with JSON?

Question

In my controller/request-handler, I have the following code:

def monkey(self, **kwargs):
  cherrypy.response.headers['Content-Type'] = "application/json"
  message = {"message" : "Hello World!" }
  return message
monkey.exposed = True

And, in my view, I've got this javascript:

$(function() {
  var body = document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0];
  $.ajaxSetup({ 
    scriptCharset : "utf-8",
    contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8"
  });
  $.post("http://localhost/wsgi/raspberry/monkey", "somePostData",
    function(data) {
      try{
        var response = jQuery.parseJSON(data);
        body.innerHTML += "<span class='notify'>" + response + "</span>";
      }catch(e){ 
        body.innerHTML += "<span class='error'>" + e + "</span>";
      }
    }
  );
});

And finally, here's my problem. I get no JSON response and I'm not sure why.

Secondly, would someone be able to explain how to format data in my controller/request-handler response as a JSON response in the simplest way possible, without using tools?

Answer 1

Not sure what you mean by "without using tools" -- Python is "a tool", right?

With just Python and its standard library (2.6 or better), add at the top of your module

import json

and change the return statement to

return json.dumps(message)