Symfony Response Object that creates a JSON object which envelopes your content in a "content" part and has "meta" data that you can add on to. I tuses the JMSSerializerBundle to make sure it serializes properly.

ResponseJSON.php

<?php
/**
 * User: sarel
 * Date: 2015/05/31
 * Time: 10:10 AM
 */

namespace AH\AQueueBundle\Helper;

use JMS\Serializer\SerializerBuilder;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;

class ResponseJSON extends Response
{
    /**
     * Constructor.
     *
     * @param mixed $content The response content, see setContent()
     * @param int $status The response status code
     * @param array $headers An array of response headers
     *
     * @throws \InvalidArgumentException When the HTTP status code is not valid
     *
     * @api
     */
    public function __construct($content = '', $status = 200, $headers = array(), $extra_meta = array())
    {
        parent::__construct('', 200, array('Content-Type' => 'application/json'));

        $meta = array_merge(array('status'=>$status), $extra_meta);

        $serializer = SerializerBuilder::create()->build();
        $json = $serializer->serialize(
            array(
                'content' => $content,
                'meta' => $meta
            ), 'json');

        $this->setContent($json);
        $this->setStatusCode($status);
    }
}

Usage:

$content = array('foo'=>'bar');
$extraMeta = array('tell_the_user'=>'something');
return new ResponseJSON($content, Response::HTTP_OK, null, $extraMeta);