CakePHP - How to return string (like JSON) from controller action to Ajax request

Question

So I have my JavaScript making an Ajax call to /my_controller/ajax_action but then in the controller I don\'t know what to do to output something back to the Ja

Answer 1

Easiest way I found was to disable the automatic rendering:

function ajax_action($data = null) {
    if($this->RequestHandler->isAjax()) {
        $this->autoRender = false;
        //process my data and return it
        return $data;
    } else {    
        $this->Session->setFlash(__('Not an AJAX Query', true));
        $this->redirect(array('action' => 'index'));
    }   
}