javascrip/jquery and php ajax force error

Question

Is it possible to force an error state to return to an ajax request from a php script.

I am handling the success and error states in an ajax request and i want a way to force the error. The error only seems to be triggered b y xhttp error and i want to trigger this when a condition is not met at the server. Its seems confusing to have to return success and have to actually put a flag in the response for an error

Answer 1

You can use header to do this, for example:

header('HTTP/1.1 503 Service Unavailable');