How to use jsonutil with coldfusion7 and jquery ajax?

I'm trying to understand how to use JSONutil to serialize/deserialize JSON between jquery and coldfusion. I am stuck with coldfusion 7 so I can't use the returnformat='json' attribute in my cfc.

client.cfc:

<cfcomponent>
    <cffunction name="GetClientsByName"
        returntype="query" 
        hint="get clients from search term">

        <cfargument name="name" type="string" required="yes">

        <cfquery name="GetClientsByName" datasource="#application.dsn#">
            SELECT client_id, client_name
            FROM Clients
            WHERE client_name LIKE '%' + <cfqueryparam cfsqltype="cf_sql_varchar" value="#arguments.name#"> + '%'    
        </cfquery>

        <cfreturn GetClientsByName>
    </cffunction>
</cfcomponent>

jquery ajax call:

function getClients(name){
    $.ajax {
        type: "post"
        url: "/surveymanagement/admin/client.cfc",
        dataType: "json",
        data: {
            method: "GetClientsByName",
            name: name
        },
        success: function(data){
            $("#here").html(data)
        }
    }

Now where and how do I use jsonutil to get this to work?

The site for jsonutil: http://jsonutil.riaforge.org/

(Brief side note, my advice is get the cfc working separately first. It is much easier to debug CF problems that way. Do not add jquery to the mix until you have confirmed the cfc returns the desired JSON string. But back to your question ...)

The utility is easy to use. Inside your function, create an instance of it. Then pass your query object into serializeJSON(). Finally return the resulting string.

Note, your function signature must support remote access and return a string (not a query)

    <cffunction name="GetClientsByName" access="remote" returntype="string">
        <cfargument name="name" type="string" required="yes">

        <!--- always localize function variables --->
        <cfset var util = createObject("component", "path.to.JSONUtil")>
        <cfset var getClientsByName = "">

         .... run cfquery .....

        <!--- return JSON string --->   
        <cfreturn util.serializeJSON(getClientsByName)>

    </cffunction>

You can test the cfc directly in your browser (or with cfinvoke):

    http://localhost/path/to/client.cfc?method=getClientsByName&name=foo

However, the native representation of queries is a bit awkward IMO. As Lance mentioned, you may prefer to return an array of structures instead, which is a more standard.

     <cfset var results = arrayNew(1)>
     <cfset var elem = "">
     ... run query ...  

     <cfloop query="getClientsByName">
          <cfset elem = structNew()>
          <cfset elem["client_id"] = getClientsByName.client_id>
          <cfset elem["client_name"] = getClientsByName.client_name>
          <cfset arrayAppend(results, elem)>
      </cfloop>

      <cfreturn util.serializeJSON(results)>