$.postJSON() for jQuery

Heads up! This post was written in 2008, so it may contain information that is no longer accurate. I keep posts like this around for historical purposes and to prevent link rot, so please keep this in mind as you're reading.

— Cory

$.getJSON() is pretty handy for sending an AJAX request and getting back JSON data as a response. Alas, the jQuery documentation lacks a sister function that should be named $.postJSON(). Why not just use $.getJSON() and be done with it? Well, perhaps you want to send a large amount of data or, in my case, IE7 just doesn't want to work properly with a GET request.

It is true, there is currently no $.postJSON() method, but you can accomplish the same thing by specifying a fourth parameter (type) in the $.post() function:

// Send the request
$.post('script.php', data, function(response) {
  // Do something with the request
}, 'json');

This works for $.get() as well, which means $.getJSON() is basically a call to $.get() with 'json' as the fourth parameter.