So you want to: Use JSONUtil instead of Native JSON serialization

This example is implemented in the folder examples/api_jsonutil/ (included in the download).

Using JSONUtil instead of the native JSON serialization functionality is as easy as creating a custom serializer that indicates it serializes to the application/json mime type and implements the getAsJson method:

We've already discussed the basics of creating a custom representation class, so here we'll focus on specifically how to use JSONUtil.

JsonUtilSerializer.cfc:

<cfcomponent extends="taffy.core.baseSerializer">

	<cfset variables.jsonUtil = application.jsonUtil />

	<cffunction
		name="getAsJson"
		output="false"
		taffy:mime="application/json"
		taffy:default="true">
			<cfreturn variables.jsonUtil.serialize(variables.data) />
	</cffunction>

</cfcomponent>

This example assumes that you've stored an instance of JSONUtil in the Application scope. As discussed in the xml example, this is not the best way to write your code, and we have an example on using dependency injection instead, but doing so here keeps it as simple as possible to just illustrate JSONUtil usage and no other "new" concepts.

By setting taffy:mime="application/json" and naming the method getAsJson, Taffy knows that this class should be used to respond to requests for JSON data.

Once you've created this custom representation class, which I've named JsonUtilSerializer.cfc, you need to tell your application to use it. You do so by adding this code to Application.cfc:

variables.framework.serializer = "JsonUtilSerializer";

Notice that I'm not providing some long fully-qualified dot-notation path for the CFC. Instead, I've saved it in my /resources folder, and because of this we can simply use the file name minus the .cfc, which is its Bean Name.