CakePHP 3和jQuery Ajax

Question

I am having issues with making an ajax request to my controller. Here is my code:

 $.ajax({
                type:"POST",
                async: true,
                cache: false,
                url:"<?php echo \Cake\Routing\Router::url(array('controller'=>'Organizations','action'=>'add', 'ext' => 'json'));?>",
                beforeSend: function(xhr) {
                    xhr.setRequestHeader('Content-type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
                },
                success: function(tab){
                    $( "#users acronymTable" ).append( "<tr>" +
                        "<td>" + acronym.val() + "</td>" +         
                        "<td>" + definition.val() + "</td>" +
                      "</tr>" );
                },
                error: function (tab) {
                    alert('error' + tab.statusText);
                }
            });

MyController.php:

class OrganizationsController extends AppController
{

    public function initialize(){
         parent::initialize();
        $this->loadComponent('RequestHandler');
    }
 public function add()
    {
        $this->layout = null;

        if ($this->request->is('post')) {

        // result can be anything coming from $this->data
        $result =  'Hello Dolly!';
        $this->set("result", $result);        

        }
    }
}

The problem is that this does not return a string but returns an error page. If I view the error page, the error is:

Missing Template: Error: The view for OrganizationsController::add() was not found.

While it is true that there is no add.ctp file, it should not be trying to find a view to return, as I only want it to return a single string. Am I missing a setting somewhere?

thanks

Answer 1

You need to have a view that the $result should be sent to. If you don't want a view turn off auto rendering $this->autoRender = false;, otherwise create an add.ctp or declare a different view with $this->render('other_view');

As noted by ndm

Always either render a template, use a serialized data view, or prepare and return a response object