Ajax call to Asp.net Web Method using Jquery

Question

I am using a jquery method, to send information (namely only member identification #) from client side to the server side.

The server side has the traditional Web Method implemented so as to capture data sent and execute SQL queries based on it.

Web-service-method-using-jQuery

However until now I have been returning a single string from the server side back to the client side after the SQL query.

Wondering what would be the best way to return a complicated series of strings... member Identification number, start date, end date, type of member... depending on the type of the member, there can be multiple start dates and end dates.

Should I be looking into XML ?

Answer 1

What about returning even a datatable

 $.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "YourPage.aspx/doSomething",
data: "{'id':'1'}",
dataType: "json",
contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
success: function (data) {
    var returnedstring = data.d;
    var jsondata = $.parseJSON(data.d);//if you want your data in json
  }
});

aspx:

[WebMethod]
public static string doSomething(int id)
{
   ....
   DataTable dt = new DataTable();
   dt = anothermethodReturningdt(id)

   return JsonConvert.SerializeObject(dt);
}

You can use json.net for serializing .Net objects

Edit

you can also do this

[WebMethod]
public static string doSomething(int id)
{
   Product product = new Product();
   product.Name = "Apple";
   product.Expiry = new DateTime(2008, 12, 28);
   product.Price = 3.99M;
   product.Sizes = new string[] { "Small", "Medium", "Large" };

   return JsonConvert.SerializeObject(product);
}

The point is you can serialize any type of object, arrays, collections etc and then pass it back to the calling script.