In Play, the response to a request is a result. A result has two components: the response header and the response body. Let's look at a simple example of this:

def plainResult = Action {
  Result( 
    header = ResponseHeader(200, Map(CONTENT_TYPE -> "text/plain")), 
    body = Enumerator("This is the response from plainResult method".getBytes())
  )
}

Notice that we used an enumerator for the response body. An enumerator is a means to provide data to an iteratee. We will discuss these in detail in Chapter 6, Reactive Data Streams.

Apart from this, a result has additional functions that equips us with better means to handle response headers, sessions, cookies, and so on.

A result can send JSON, XML, and images as a response, apart from a String content. An easier way of generating a result is to use the result helpers. A result helper is used for most of the HTTP response status. As an example, let's see how the TODO Action that comes built in with Play is implemented:

val TODO = Action {
    NotImplemented[play.api.templates.Html](views.html.defaultpages.todo()) 
  } 

In this snippet, NotImplemented is a helper, which returns a result with a status of 501 and views.html.defaultpages.todo() returns the default page, which is todo.scala.html.

As an example, we'll consider the Action that sends the user's profile image inline. The Action would now be as follows:

def getUserImage(userId: Long) = Action {
    val path: String = s"/socialize/user/$userId.jpeg"
    val img = new File(path)
    if (img.exists()) {
      Ok.sendFile( 
        content = img, 
        inline = true
      )
     }
    else
      NoContent
  } 

Here, we attempt to load the user's profile image using the predefined getUserImagePath method. If the image file exists and attaches itself to the response, we return a response with the 204 status code.

We also saw how a result helper can be used to send the page content, both static and dynamic, using views:

def listArtist = Action { 
     Ok(views.html.home(Artist.fetch)) 
  }

We could also use the Status class to generate the result, as shown here:

def save = Action(parse.text) { 
    request => 
      Status(200)("Got: " + request.body) 
  } 

This table shows you the result helpers and their corresponding status codes: