AJAX Action Wrapper

This helper library makes it easier to handle AJAX requests in WordPress plugins. Mainly for personal use.

Example

Define action:

$exampleAction = ajaw_v1_CreateAction('ws_do_something')
	->handler(array($this, 'myAjaxCallback'))
	->requiredCap('manage_options')
	->method('post')
	->requiredParam('foo')
	->optionalParam('bar', 'default value')
	->register();

Call from JavaScript:

AjawV1.getAction('ws_do_something').post(
	{
		'foo': '...'
	},
	function(response) {
		console.log(response);
	}
);

Features

• Automate common, boring stuff.
  • [x] Automatically pass the admin-ajax.php URL and nonce to JS.
  • [x] Define required parameters.

    builder->requiredParam('foo', 'int')
    

  • [x] Define optional parameters with default values.

    builder->optionalParam('meaningOfLife', 42, 'int')
    

  • [x] Automatically remove "magic quotes" that WordPress adds to $_GET, $_POST and $_REQUEST.
  • [x] Encode return values as JSON.
• Security should be the default.
  • [x] Generate and verify nonces. Nonce verification is on by default, but can be disabled.

    builder->withoutNonce()
    

  • [x] Check capabilities.

    builder->requiredCap('manage_options');
    

  • [x] Verify that all required parameters are set.
  • [x] Validate parameter values.

    builder->optionalParam('things', 1, 'int', function($value) {
    if ($value > 10) {
    	return new WP_Error(
    		'excessive_things',
    		'Too many things!',
    		400 //HTTP status code.
    	);
    }
    )
    

  • [x] Set the required HTTP method.

    builder->method('post')
    

• Resilience.
  • [ ] Lenient response parsing to work around bugs in other plugins. For example, deal with extraneous whitespace and PHP notices in AJAX responses.
  • [x] Multiple versions of the library can coexist on the same site.

Why not use the REST API instead?

Backwards compatibility. In theory, this library should be compatible with WP 4.1+.