Accessing stackoverflow API with jsonp gives unexpected result - ajax

Question

I am trying to access the Stackoverflow API with jsonp as datatype by doing this:
$(document).ready(function(){
$.ajax({
url: 'http://api.stackoverflow.com/1.1/tags/php/top-answerers/month',
dataType: 'jsonp',
});
});
And once I reload, I get the following in the console:
"Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token :"
What am I doing wrong here?

Answer 1

Right now the application is returning Content-Type: application/json.
You can fix this by overriding the callback function name to jsonp which will tell the server to return Content-Type: application/javascript instead:
$(document).ready(function () {
$.ajax({
url: 'http://api.stackoverflow.com/1.1/tags/php/top-answerers/month',
dataType: 'jsonp',
jsonp: 'jsonp',
success: function (data) {
alert(data.top_users.length + ' users retrieved.');
}
});
});
Info on jsonp ajax setting:
jsonpString
Override the callback function name in a jsonp request. This value
will be used instead of 'callback' in the 'callback=?' part of the
query string in the url. So {jsonp:'onJSONPLoad'} would result in
'onJSONPLoad=?' passed to the server. As of jQuery 1.5, setting the
jsonp option to false prevents jQuery from adding the "?callback"
string to the URL or attempting to use "=?" for transformation. In
this case, you should also explicitly set the jsonpCallback setting.
For example, { jsonp: false, jsonpCallback: "callbackName" }

Answer 2

From https://api.stackexchange.com/docs
All API responses are JSON, we do support JSONP with the callback query parameter. Every response in the API is returned in a common "wrapper" object, for easier and more consistent parsing.
So you should use dataType: 'json' rather than jsonp.
You should also upgrade to the 2.1 API, the 1.x API has been deprecated for 6 months.