Ajax in a Joomla 3.x component's view - ajax

Question

I'm building a Component for Joomla 3.x and I encounter a problem handling an ajax request.
The source is available on Github: JomCity
My request is made from the venues view : /com_jomcity/site/views/venues/tmpl/default.php
<script type="text/javascript">
jQuery(document).ready(function () {
jQuery('#main_search_request').keyup(function() {
var request_content = jQuery(this).val();
jQuery.get(
// Specify the server URL and the $_GET datas to send
'index.php?option=com_jomcity&task=searchVenues&format=json',
{ search: request_content },
// The server will respond with some data encoded in JSON
function(data){
jQuery('#results').html('');
for (var i = 0; i < data.venues.length; i++) {
var venue = data.venues[i];
console.log(venue);
jQuery('#results').append(
'<div class="grid-item">' +
'<a href="#">' +
'<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/80/80" alt="">' +
'<div>' +
'<div>' +
'<h3>'+venue.name+'</h3>' +
'<span>* * * * *</span>' +
'</div>' +
'<div>Short descrption</div>' +
'</div>' +
'</a>' +
'</div>'
);
}
}
);
});
});
</script>
This ajax script communicate with the main controller of the component (site part), so I'm wondering how can I get the values from the model com_jomcity/site/models/venues.php.
Is it possible with this code ? Or should I handle the ajax request in the controller of the view (I didn't find how to do that) ?

Answer 1

Thanks #Torreto and #GDP for your participation.
I finally kept on creating a task in the main controller exchanging with the database directly, so without using any model. I think it should exist a better and cleaner way to code this ajax call, so I'm open to any advice for further improvement.
The code I used, if it can help someone :
In /com_jomcity/site/views/venues/tmpl/default.php:
<script type="text/javascript">
jQuery(document).ready(function () {
jQuery('#main_search_request').keyup(function() {
var request_content = jQuery(this).val();
jQuery.get(
// Specify the server URL and the $_GET datas to send
'index.php?option=com_jomcity&task=searchVenues&format=json',
{ search: request_content },
// The server will respond with some data encoded in JSON
function(data){
// Clean the #result div between two search results
jQuery('#results').html('');
// Read and display each objects returned in the json response
for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
var venue = data[i];
jQuery('#results').append(
'<div class="grid-item">' +
'<a href="#">' +
'<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/80/80" alt="">' +
'<div>' +
'<div>' +
'<h3>'+venue.en_name+'</h3>' +
'<span>* * * * *</span>' +
'</div>' +
'<div>Short descrption</div>' +
'</div>' +
'</a>' +
'</div>'
);
}
}
);
});
});
</script>
In /com_jomcity/site/controller.php:
class JomCityController extends JControllerLegacy
{
/**
* Search in all the venues
* #return string The message to be displayed to the user
*/
public function searchVenues() {
if (isset($_GET['search'])) {
// Get a db connection
$db = JFactory::getDBO();
// Create a new query object
$query = $db->getQuery(true);
// Select all records from the jomcity_venues_items table
// Where the name or the description correspond to the user's search keywords
// Order it by the en_score field
$query
->select('*')
->from('#__jomcity_venues_items')
->where('`local_name` like "%'.$_GET['search'].'%" OR `en_name` like "%'.$_GET['search'].'%" OR `description` like "%'.$_GET['search'].'%"')
->order('en_name ASC');
// Reset the query using our newly populated query object
$db->setQuery((string)$query);
// Load the results as a list of stdClass objects.
$this->venues = $db->loadObjectList();
}
echo json_encode($this->venues);
}
}