# How to marshal Javascript data? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [May 24, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-marshal-javascript-data/61496 "2006-05-24T16:26:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bradley\_M](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Bradley\_M](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Bradley_M)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-marshal-javascript-data/61496/1 "2006-05-24T16:26:29Z")
I’m trying to marshal some information I have in Javascript, and send it over an AJAX request to the server, specifically to be stored in a model on the server side. I have some Javascript routines I wrote that gather information about the user selection. I see that the link\_to\_remote has a :before option in which I can write Javascript to collect what I need, but right now I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to do it. What I would like to do is present the user with a link. On invocation of the link, my Javascript function is invoked, returning an object with all the relevent data I need (mostly just numeric data). Now I want to send the data to the server. How do I marshall that data up and send it to the server? Do I have to somehow wrap all this in some sort of form containing only hidden fields? Am I coming at this from the right direction? What’s the right way to do it? Thanks, Brad ---
**Author:** ![Bradley\_M](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Bradley\_M](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Bradley_M)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2006, 7:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-marshal-javascript-data/61496/2 "2006-05-24T19:19:09Z")
just use javascirpt and the prototype.js lib directly and not just the rails helper and you get all you need. if you send the data as JSON-serialized, than it is easy to handle it at rails serverside, but I do not know whether prototype.js has specific JSON support.