How to implement redirect response with an AJAX request in Rails 3?

Question

I have a simple scenario where I want to request a page. The request format is AJAX. If there is some error in the controller/action logic for that request, I want to redirect to an error page. The issue is that a redirect is not a JavaScript response type, so I am not sure whether it will work.

If there are no errors, then I want the page to be updated via the appropriate JavaScript response type.

What is best practice to achieve redirect responses given that the request format is AJAX?

Answer 1

This blog post enlightened me on what I think is the right way to do this, if your ajax response is ajax; at least, in the unobtrusive javascript paradigm. In essense, the ajax call always returns a standard json package, which can be parsed for information payload or a redirect url.