jquery how to check response type for ajax call

Question

How can I determine the response type of ajax call in Jquery? At times, the server sends json response and at times it sends only the html for display purposes. Right now I

Answer 1

If the response is parsed as JSON, the jqXHR object will have a responseJSON property.

$.ajax(
    // ...
).done(function(data, textStatus, jqXHR) {
    if (jqXHR.responseJSON) {
        // handle JSON
    } else {
        // handle html
    }
}).fail(function(jqXHR, textStatus, errorThrown) {
    if (jqXHR.responseJSON) {
        // handle JSON
    else {
        // handle html
    }
})

From the jQuery.ajax documentation:

If json is specified, the response is parsed using jQuery.parseJSON before being passed, as an object, to the success handler. The parsed JSON object is made available through the responseJSON property of the jqXHR object.