Hello,
While AJAX is all about using Xml to transfer Asynchronously data to
Javascript, in many cases it's more beneficial to use JSON (http://json.org)
instead of XML, when transferring data from server to AJAX application. Many
implementations of JSON are available for different languages. The easiest
one is for JavaScript.
If you have to "parse" JSON-encoded data in JavaScript, the simplest way is
to do it like this:
var myVeryCoolObject = eval("(" + aJSONtext + ")");
It means, you cannot use dojo.io.bind({ mimetype: "text/javascript" }),
which does automatic evaluation of JavaScript because it would fail for
JSON.
It would be really handy to have a shortcut for automatic "parsing" of JSON
and it is extremely easy to do so. Maybe some new MIME type should be
introduced to specify JSON type. As far as I know there is no official JSON
MIME type. So I propose to use "application/x-json" for now.
Thanks,
Eugene
PS: Some security minded people use simple JSON parser written in JavaScript
to validate the input. I don't think it is a valid concern for Dojo. Not
after totally insecure "text/javascript" evaluation. And I like it this
way --- fast and simple.
PPS: Please note that "text/javascript" and "text/ecmascript" are to become
officially obsolete. They are going to be replaced with
"application/javascript" and "application/ecmascript" respectively. Should
they be added as well? See details here:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-hoehrmann-script-types-03.txt
