success function in ajax in django - django

Question

in views:
return render_to_response("main.html", RequestContext(request, {'form':form, "result":result}))
in template i have this jquery function:
$('#submitButton').click(function(e) {
e.preventDefault();
var dataPosted = $("#mainSubmit").serialize();
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
data: dataPosted,
url: 'main/',
success: function(data) {
$("#mainDiv").html(data);
$(".response").html({{ result }});
$(".response").show();
}
});
});
});
<div id="mainDiv" class="part">
<form id="mainSubmit" action="main/" method="POST" name="submitForm">
{% csrf_token %}
{{ form.non_field_errors }}
{{ form.as_p }}
<input type="submit" value="Submit" id="submitButton"/>
<div class="response" style="display: none;"></div>
</form>
</div>
but it seems that data can't be assigned to response div like this(it seems data is not defined). So i don't know what is the way to send data to template. if i use Httpresponse(result) in views, then i can't have my form refreshed, and only i can display in response div data i send from view. so what is the way?
EDIT:
This is my views. before, i didn't put else for the condition if form.is_valid(): , but here i use, because i think if i don't do this, it might cause some probables. i don't know what is the best way.
def mainFunc(request):
if request.is_ajax():
if request.method == 'POST':
form = mainForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
// process the form
result = "successful"
to_json = {'form':form, 'result':result}
return HttpResponse(json.dumps(to_json), mimetype='application/json')
else:
result = ""
to_json = {'form':form, 'result':result}
return HttpResponse(json.dumps(to_json), mimetype='application/json')
else:
form = mainForm()
return render_to_response('main.html', RequestContext(request, {'form':form}))
else:
return render_to_response("ajax.html", {}, context_instance=RequestContext(request))

Answer 1

You need to return a response in format like JSON
You can use this snippet or more simple code like this:
from django.utils import simplejson
to_json = {'form':form, "result":result}
return HttpResponse(simplejson.dumps(to_json), mimetype='application/json')
Then you will be able to use data.result and data.form in your JS code.
If you use the same view for ajax and non-ajax call you can check for it with request.is_ajax()
Also you will not be able to use template tags and filters in your JS callback. So you need to pre-render your form before sending it via JSON
So the final code:
to_json = {'form':form, "result":result}
if request.is_ajax():
to_json['form'] = to_json['form'].as_p()
return HttpResponse(simplejson.dumps(to_json), mimetype='application/json')
else:
render_to_response("main.html", RequestContext(request, {'form':form, "result":result}))
Edit I assume that ajax.html is the template for the whole page and main.html is the template for mainDiv part of the page
So in is_ajax() part of you view you can return the data like this.
to_json = {}
to_json['form'] = render_to_string('main.html', {'form': form}, context_instance=RequestContext(request))
to_json['result'] = result
return HttpResponse(json.dumps(to_json), mimetype='application/json')
And you always return data like this, both for GET and POST AJAX calls
And in JS you get data like this:
$("#mainDiv").html(data.form);
$(".response").html(data.result);
$(".response").show();