Kohana JSend module (easy JSON API)

Author: Kemal Delalic

See: http://labs.omniti.com/labs/jsend

Example API controller

public function before()
{
	parent::before();

	$this->json = new JSend;
}

public function action_create()
{
	if ($this->request->method() === Request::POST)
	{	
		try
		{
			$post = ORM::factory('post')
				->values($this->request->post(), array('title','message'))
				->create();
				
			$this->json->data('post', $post); // success is default anyways
		}
		catch (ORM_Validation_Exception $e)
		{
			// Errors are extracted
			// from ORM_Validation_Exception objects
			$this->json->status(JSend::FAIL)
				->data('errors', $e); 
		}
		catch (Exception $e)
		{
			// Exception message will be extracted
			// and status will be set to JSend::ERROR
			// because only error responses support messages
			$this->json->message($e); 
		}
	}
	else
	{
		$this->json->message('Not a POST request?');
	}
}

public function action_all()
{
	$this->json->set('posts', ORM::factory('post')->find_all());
}

public function action_read()
{
	$post = ORM::factory('post', $id = $this->router->param('id'));

	if ( ! $post->loaded())
		return $this->json->message('Post :id not found!', array('id' => $id));

	$this->json->data('post', $post);
}

public function after()
{
	$this->json->render_into($this->response);

	return parent::after();
}

Example jQuery response handling

$.post('/posts', {from: 1337}, function(jsend) {
	if (jsend.status === 'success') {
		$.each(jsend.data.posts, function(key, post) {
			$('#posts').append('<a href="' + post.url + '">' + post.title + '</a>')
		})
	}
	else if (jsend.status === 'fail') {
		$.each(jsend.data.errors, function(field, error) {
			$('#form').find('#' + field).append('<span class="error">' + error + '</span>')
		})
	}
	else {
		$('#posts').addClass('error').text('Internal error: ' + post.message)
	}
});

This can also be overriden on more 'global' level, by overriding or adding jQuery methods.