$.ajax - dataType

jquery

Solution

- `contentType` is the HTTP header sent to the server, specifying a particular format. Example: I'm sending JSON or XML

- `dataType` is you telling jQuery what kind of response to expect. Expecting JSON, or XML, or HTML, etc. The default is for jQuery to try and figure it out.

The `$.ajax()` documentation has full descriptions of these as well.

In your particular case, the first is asking for the response to be in `UTF-8`, the second doesn't care. Also the first is treating the response as a JavaScript object, the second is going to treat it as a string.

So the first would be:

success: function(data) {
  // get data, e.g. data.title;
}

The second:

success: function(data) {
  alert("Here's lots of data, just a string: " + data);
}

Problem

What is the difference between ``` contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8", dataType: "json", ``` vs. ``` contentType: "application/json", dataType: "text", ```

Original source