Custom Response

Zigmund provides built-in response constructors for the most common content types: HTML, plain text, redirects, and JSON. Each constructor sets the appropriate Content-Type header automatically.

Overview

By default, Zigmund handlers return JSON responses via Response.json(). However, many applications need to serve HTML pages, return plain text, or issue redirects. Zigmund provides dedicated constructors on the Response type for each of these cases, so you do not need to manually set headers or format bodies.

Example

const std = @import("std");
const zigmund = @import("zigmund");

fn htmlResponse() zigmund.Response {
    return zigmund.Response.html(
        \\<html><body><h1>Hello from Zigmund</h1></body></html>
    );
}

fn textResponse() zigmund.Response {
    return zigmund.Response.text("Plain text response from Zigmund");
}

fn redirectResponse(allocator: std.mem.Allocator) !zigmund.Response {
    return zigmund.Response.redirect(allocator, "/html", .temporary_redirect);
}

fn jsonResponse(allocator: std.mem.Allocator) !zigmund.Response {
    return zigmund.Response.json(allocator, .{
        .response_type = "json",
        .message = "Standard JSON response",
    });
}

pub fn buildExample(app: *zigmund.App) !void {
    try app.get("/html", htmlResponse, .{
        .summary = "Return an HTML response",
    });
    try app.get("/text", textResponse, .{
        .summary = "Return a plain text response",
    });
    try app.get("/redirect", redirectResponse, .{
        .summary = "Return a redirect response",
    });
    try app.get("/json", jsonResponse, .{
        .summary = "Return a JSON response",
    });
}

How It Works

Response.html

Returns an HTML response with Content-Type: text/html.

return zigmund.Response.html(
    \\<html><body><h1>Hello</h1></body></html>
);

The argument is a []const u8 containing the HTML body. This constructor does not require an allocator because the body is typically a comptime-known string literal (using Zig's multiline string syntax \\).

Response.text

Returns a plain text response with Content-Type: text/plain.

return zigmund.Response.text("Plain text content");

Like html(), this constructor works with string literals and does not require an allocator.

Response.redirect

Returns a redirect response with the specified status code and a Location header pointing to the target URL.

return zigmund.Response.redirect(allocator, "/target-path", .temporary_redirect);

Common redirect status codes:

Status	HTTP Code	Use Case
`.temporary_redirect`	307	Temporary redirect, preserves method
`.permanent_redirect`	308	Permanent redirect, preserves method
`.moved_permanently`	301	Permanent redirect, may change method
`.found`	302	Temporary redirect, may change method
`.see_other`	303	Redirect after POST (always GET)

Response.json

Returns a JSON response with Content-Type: application/json. The value is serialized using std.json.

return zigmund.Response.json(allocator, .{
    .key = "value",
    .count = 42,
});

This is the most common response type and requires an allocator for serialization.

Key Points

Each response constructor sets the correct Content-Type header automatically.
Response.html() and Response.text() do not require an allocator when used with string literals.
Response.redirect() requires an allocator and accepts a redirect status code enum value.
Response.json() serializes any Zig value (structs, anonymous structs, slices) into JSON.
You can chain .withStatus() on any response to override the default status code.
All response types can have custom headers added via response.setHeader().