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first problem is that, as the JavaScript has been delivered to the browser along with the page, that
logic has been opened up to interrogation. This might be fine for checking the format of an email Visual Basic Coder
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XML Resources address but would be no good for something like our serial number example, as the exposure of Join GetAFreelancer.com
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the method of verifying that input would compromise the integrity of the serial number and bid on projects. Free
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A solution to these problem presents itself in the form of the XMLHttpRequest object. This Download today!
object, first implemented by Microsoft as an ActiveX object but now also available as a native www.freexmleditor.com
object within both Mozilla and Apple's Safari browser, enables JavaScript to make HTTP
requests to a remote server without the need to reload the page. In essence, HTTP requests can be
made and responses received, completely in the background and without the user experiencing
any visual interruptions. Xml vb
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This is a tremendous boon, as it takes the developer a long way towards achieving the goals of www.advancedwebsearch.com
both a responsive user interface and keeping all the important logic in the application layer. By
using JavaScript to ferry input back to the server in real time, the logic can be performed on the
server and the response returned for nearinstant feedback.
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Due to its history, and not yet being embodied in any public standard (although something www.stylusstudio.com
similar is in the works for the proposed W3C DOM Level 3 Load and Save spec), there are two
distinct methods for instantiating an XMLHttpRequest object. For Internet Explorer, an ActiveX
object is used:
var req = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
For Mozilla and Safari, it's just a native object:
var req = new XMLHttpRequest();
Clearly, as a result of this inconsistency, it's necessary to fork your code based on support for the
appropriate object. Whilst there are a number of methods for doing this (including inelegant
browser hacks and conditional comment mechanisms), I believe it's best to simply test for
support of either object. A good example of this can be found in Apple's developer
documentation on the subject. Let's take their example:
var req;
function loadXMLDoc(url)
{
// branch for native XMLHttpRequest object
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
req = new XMLHttpRequest();
req.onreadystatechange = processReqChange;
req.open("GET", url, true);
req.send(null);
// branch for IE/Windows ActiveX version
} else if (window.ActiveXObject) {
req = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
if (req) {
req.onreadystatechange = processReqChange;
req.open("GET", url, true);
req.send();
}
}
}
A particularly important property to note is the onreadystatechange property. Note how it is
assigned to a function processReqChange. This property is an event handler which is triggered
whenever the state of the request changes. The states run from zero (uninitialized) through to four
(complete). This is important because our script isn't going to wait for the response before
continuing. The HTTP shenanigans are initiated, but then they carry on out of process whilst the
rest of the script runs. Due to this, it's not as simple as having loadXMLDoc return the result of the
request at the end of the function, because we don't know if we'll have a response by then or not.
By having the function processReqChange check for the state changing, we can tell when the
process has finished and carry on only if it has been successful.
With this in mind, a skeleton processReqChange function needs to check for two things. The
first is the state changing to a value of 4, indicating the process complete. The second is to check
the HTTP status code. You'll be familiar with common status codes like 404 (file not found) and
500 (internal server error), but the status code we're looking for is good old 200 (ok), which
means everything went well. If we get both a state of 4 and an HTTP status code of 200, we can
go right ahead and start processing the response. Optionally, of course, we can attempt to handle
any errors at this point, if, for example, the HTTP status code was something other than 200.
function processReqChange()
{
// only if req shows "complete"
if (req.readyState == 4) {
// only if "OK"
if (req.status == 200) {
// ...processing statements go here...
} else {
alert("There was a problem retrieving
the XML data:\n" + req.statusText);
}
}
}
In Practice
I'm going to work up a practical example so we can get this going. Most web applications have
some method of signing up users, and it's common to ask the user to pick a username to use for
the site. Often, these need to be unique, and so a check is made against the database to see if any
other user already has the username a new recruit is trying to sign up with. If you've ever signed
up for a web mail account, you'll know how infuriating it is cycling around the process trying to
find a username that isn't already taken. It would be really helpful if that check could be made
without the user leaving the page.
The solution will involve four key elements: an XHTML form, a JavaScript function for handling
the specifics of this case, our pair of generic functions (as above) for dealing with HTTP, and
finally, a script on the server to search the database.
The Form
Here's the easy bita simple form field to collect the user's chosen username. An onblur event
handler is used to fire the script. In order to display a friendly message to the user if the name is
taken, I've embedded it in the form and hidden it with CSS. This should prove a little less violent
than a standard JavaScript alert box.
<input id="username" name="username" type="text"
onblur="checkName(this.value,'')" />
<span class="hidden" id="nameCheckFailed">
This name is in use, please try another.
</span>
The CSS defines a class for hidden and also one for showing the error. Call that one error.
span.hidden{
display: none;
}
span.error{
display: inline;
color: black;
backgroundcolor: pink;
}
Handling the Input
The checkName function is used to handle the input from our form. Its job is to collect the input,
decide which script on the server to present it to, invoke the HTTP functions to do the dirty work
on its behalf, and then deal with the response. As such, this function has to operate in two modes.
One mode receives input from the form, the other the response from the HTTP request. I'll
explain the reason for this in the next section.
function checkName(input, response)
{
if (response != ''){
// Response mode
message = document.getElementById('nameCheckFailed');
if (response == '1'){
message.className = 'error';
}else{
message.className = 'hidden';
}
}else{
// Input mode
url =
'http://localhost/xml/checkUserName.php?q=' + input;
loadXMLDoc(url);
}
Our response is going to be easy to deal withit'll be a string of either 1 or 0, with 1 indicating
that the name is in use. Therefore, the function changes the class name of the error message so it
gets displayed or hidden, depending. As you can see, the dirty work at the server is being done by
a script called checkUserName.php.
HTTP Heavy Lifting
As we saw earlier, the HTTP work is being done by two functions, loadXMLDoc and
processReqChange. The former can remain totally asis for the purposes of this example, with
the only modifications needed to the latter being a quick bit of DOM work.
You'll recall that by the time a successful response has been passed to processReqChange, we're
no long in a position to pass any sort of return value back up the chain. Because of this, it's going
to be necessary to make an explicit function call to another bit of code in order to do anything
useful with the response. This is why our checkName function has to run in two modes.
Therefore, the main job of processReqChange is to parse the XML coming back from the server
and pass the raw values back to checkName.
However, it is important that we keep these functions generic (we may have multiple items on the
page that need to make use of XMLHttpRequest), and so hardcoding a reference to checkName
at this point would be foolhardy. Instead, a better design is to have the server indicate the
handling function as part of its response.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF8"
standalone="yes"?>
<response>
<method>checkName</method>
<result>1</result>
</response>
Parsing such a simple response should be no problem at all.
function processReqChange()
{
// only if req shows "complete"
if (req.readyState == 4) {
// only if "OK"
if (req.status == 200) {
// ...processing statements go here...
response = req.responseXML.documentElement;
method =
response.getElementsByTagName('method')[0].firstChild.data;
result =
response.getElementsByTagName('result')[0].firstChild.data;
eval(method + '(\'\', result)');
} else {
alert("There was a problem retrieving the XML
data:\n" + req.statusText);
}
}
}
By using the responseXML property of the XMLHttpRequest object, we have a readymade XML
object we can traverse with the DOM. By grabbing content of the method element, we know
which local function to execute along with the result. Once you've finished testing, it's probably a
good idea to dump the else clause from the above code, enabling the function to fail silently.
The Server Script
The final piece in our jigsaw is the script on the server to accept the request, process it, and return
an XML document in response. For the purposes of our example, this script looks up usernames
in a database table to determine whether a name is already in use. For brevity, my example PHP
script below just checks against two hardcoded names, 'Drew' and 'Fred'.
<?php
header('ContentType: text/xml');
function nameInUse($q)
{
if (isset($q)){
switch(strtolower($q))
{
case 'drew' :
return '1';
break;
case 'fred' :
return '1';
break;
default:
return '0';
}
}else{
return '0';
}
}
?>
<?php echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF8"
standalone="yes"?>'; ?>
<response>
<method>checkName</method>
<result><?php
echo nameInUse($_GET['q']) ?>
</result>
</response>
Of course, the logic used to verify the availability of the username in this script can be reused
after the form is submitted to recheck that the name is available. This is an important step, since
if JavaScript was not available at the client, this check would not have yet taken place.
Additionally, on a busy site, a username which checked out OK at the time the user was filling
the form in may have been taken by the time the form is submitted.
Perhaps as a next step, if you're interested in playing with this some more, you could add the
ability for the server to return a list of suggested alternative usernames if the suggested name is
taken.
In Conclusion
This small example really only scratches the surface of the things achievable with
XMLHttpRequest. Some other examples would include Google Suggest, which uses
XMLHttpRequest to provide suggested search terms, and the Tada Lists application, which
commits user data to the server in the background to provide a really fast list managing interface.
The real challenge here is not figuring out how to make the code work but thinking of interesting
ways in which it can be utilized.
Related Reading
No Nonsense
XML Web
Development
With PHP
By Thomas Myer
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Comment on this Article
l url problem
20051026 04:38:49 ramsee [Reply]
Hi,
I am writing the same code but try to run that code i have to give Url.
I have created test.txt on D:
so what url i am supposed to give thax
l Probelm...
20051015 06:34:03 fretoune [Reply]
Hello there,
I'm sorry to say that I'm just unable to make the script work. It's been a couple of hours
since it's driving me crazy... I've read over and over again, everything looks like what is
above.
I've tried without the quotes around (response == '1'), I've tried to put my files in the same
folders... No way to work (I've got Firefox 1.0.7
Sorry to post all my code, but if you can help, I'd greatly appreciate...
file : loadxmldoc.js :
var req;
function loadXMLDoc(url) {
// branch for native XMLHttpRequest object
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
req = new XMLHttpRequest();
req.onreadystatechange = processReqChange;
req.open("GET", url, true);
req.send(null);
// branch for IE/Windows ActiveX version
} else if (window.ActiveXObject) {
req = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
if (req) {
req.onreadystatechange = processReqChange;
req.open("GET", url, true);
req.send();
}
}
}
function processReqChange()
{
// only if req shows "complete"
if (req.readyState == 4) {
// only if "OK"
if (req.status == 200) {
// ...processing statements go here...
response = req.responseXML.documentElement;
method = response.getElementsByTagName('method')[0].firstChild.data;
result = response.getElementsByTagName('result')[0].firstChild.data;
eval(method + '(\'\', result)');
} else {
alert("There was a problem retrieving the XML data:\n" + req.statusText);
}
}
}
function checkName(input, response)
{
if (response != ''){
// Response mode
message = document.getElementById('nameCheckFailed');
if (response == '1'){
message.className = 'error';
alert('ok');
}else{
message.className = 'hidden';
alert('pas ok');
}
}else{
// Input mode
url = 'scripts/checkUserName.php?q=' + input;
loadXMLDoc(url);
}
}
file checkusername.php
<?php
header('ContentType: text/xml');
function nameInUse($q)
{
if (isset($q)){
switch(strtolower($q))
{
case 'drew' :
return '1';
break;
case 'fred' :
return '1';
break;
default:
return '0';
}
}else{
return '0';
}
}
?>
<?php echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF8" standalone="yes"?>'; ?>
<response>
<method>checkName</method>
<result>
<?php
echo nameInUse($_GET['q']);
?>
</result>
</response>
and the form has the span and the style required, with the call to the checkName function...
Sorry for my incompetence... and thanks if you can help.
Fred.
PS : if I make an error in the name of the file checkusername.php, I've got the alert fine...
so I guess my problem is in the response part ..?
l XMLHTTP and java
20051007 13:17:44 vivekst [Reply]
Hi,
Im working on Java Servlets. How can I use XMLHttp with Servlets
l XMLHTTP and java
20051007 12:19:56 vivekst [Reply]
Hi,
Im working on Java Servlets. How can I use XMLHttp with Servlets
l Thanks for the very good introduction, however, ...
20050912 20:32:01 peterhf [Reply]
when I run the app, the following message appears in the JavaScript Console and the app
halts:
Error: uncaught exception: Permission denied to create wrapper for object of class
UnnamedClass
I have gone over my html and php code and have some confidence that I have entered it
correctly.
I am using an iMac 10.3.9 and Firefox 1.0.6.
Any thoughts?
l Nice analysis
20050905 07:50:29 Crefordw [Reply]
I'm glad to see your logical program and analysis in this article.
Cre (http://www.cutegd.com/blog/)
l I need help =(
20050822 22:29:43 chris99 [Reply]
This is a revolution, no more waiting for requests!!
I am totally new to this and the example is not working for me =( can someone help me??
pleaseeeee
I created a file called revolution.html on my web server and another revolution.php.
Mozilla doesn't do anything after I leave(onblur) the input form and explorer gives me a
javascript error(it can't detect the object of the input box after I leave the box it says
"Object expected")
HTML BELOW
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head>
<title>This is a revolution</title>
<style type="text/css">
<!
span.hidden{
display: none;
}
span.error{
display: inline;
color: black;
backgroundcolor: pink;
}
>
</style>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
var req;
function loadXMLDoc(url)
{
// branch for native XMLHttpRequest object
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
req = new XMLHttpRequest();
req.onreadystatechange = processReqChange;
req.open("GET", url, true);
req.send(null);
// branch for IE/Windows ActiveX version
} else if (window.ActiveXObject) {
req = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
if (req) {
req.onreadystatechange = processReqChange;
req.open("GET", url, true);
req.send();
}
}
}
function processReqChange()
{
// only if req shows "complete"
if (req.readyState == 4) {
// only if "OK"
if (req.status == 200) {
// ...processing statements go here...
response = req.responseXML.documentElement;
method =
response.getElementsByTagName('method')[0].firstChild.data;
result =
response.getElementsByTagName('result')[0].firstChild.data;
eval(method + '(\'\', result)');
} else {
alert("There was a problem retrieving the XML data:\n" + req.statusText);
}
}
function checkName(input, response)
{
if (response != ''){
// Response mode
message = document.getElementById('nameCheckFailed');
if (response == 1){
message.className = 'error';
}else{
message.className = 'hidden';
}
}else{
// Input mode
url =
'http://revolution.php?q=' + input;
loadXMLDoc(url);
}
}
</SCRIPT>
</head>
<BODY >
<input id="username" name="username" type="text"
onblur="checkName(this.value,'')" >
<span class="hidden" id="nameCheckFailed">
This name is in use, please try another.
</span>
</body>
</html>
PHP file
<?php
header('ContentType: text/xml');
function nameInUse($q)
{
if (isset($q)){
switch(strtolower($q))
{
case 'drew' :
return '1';
break;
case 'fred' :
return '1';
break;
default:
return '0';
}
}else{
return '0';
}
}
?>
<?php echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF8"
standalone="yes"?>'; ?>
<response>
<method>checkName</method>
<result><?php
echo nameInUse($_GET['q']) ?>
</result>
</response>
¡ I need help =(
20050823 12:18:54 jering [Reply]
You are missing a closing curly in processReqChange. After fixing that, you will
encounter error in checkName so url should be without http:// to access a relative
php.
For some of my data not readily available in XML, I just use text on both ends. You
can check Contenttype in processReqChange and use responseText instead of
responseXML.
J
l DWR
20050718 16:03:54 dmeany1 [Reply]
This guy has done all the hard work with XMLHttpRequest() for you....if you use java.
http://www.getahead.ltd.uk/dwr/
l Microsoft.XMLHTTP vs. XMLHttpRequest
20050704 06:16:42 chrisward1 [Reply]
This may be blinding obvious to everyone else but I'd like to emphasise the importance of
setting the header content type to "text/xml" if you are using the ActiveX XMLHTTP and
want to get your hands on the DOM version of the returned XML.
I've spent two days trying to track down why using Opera (using XMLHttpRequest)
worked but using IE 6 (using Microsoft.XMLHTTP) didn't.
My problem was that I'd done a copy/paste of an old servlet for my test and it set the
content type to "text/html". In Opera this got through and the responeXML property
returned with the expected DOM object, however IE6 did return the text (in the
responseText property) but had a null responseXML.
So don't forget...
res.setContentType("text/xml");
... hope this helps someone out there!
¡ Microsoft.XMLHTTP vs. XMLHttpRequest
20051104 08:31:59 Gdawg [Reply]
I concur with this post 100%, it cost me alot of wasted time trying to get XML to
work in IE.
If you want CrossBrowser, make sure that header is sent with your XML doc.
¡ Microsoft.XMLHTTP vs. XMLHttpRequest
20050805 09:05:39 js9777 [Reply]
l char encoding problem
20050627 05:24:29 saidka [Reply]
when requested server through XMLHttpRequest [open("GET","scr.php?
par="+document.form.input.value,false)] i got (sorry for my english) next difficulty:
FireFox converts values of form elements to utf8 and sends as utf8 when page opened
directly by typing URL, otherwise (opened through link) sends as utf8 without converting,
ie6 don't convert at all.
l responseXML lost across windows?
20050609 10:42:10 JJG [Reply]
I am trying to use XMLHttpRequest in a clientside firefox plugin. I want to open a signin
dialog, and then use the user's input to send a GET request to the server for authorization.
Unfortunately, the XMLHttpRequest's responseXML always comes in null if I let the
dialog close before the server response is received. The call is being made on a global
object which is created in the main plugin overlay, to which the request is attached. The
actual request object is maintained (I verified that it was the same by setting the value of a
property when the request is created and checking it in my request change listener), but the
responseXML is nulled out. If I put in an alert that prevents the dialog from closing before
the response is received, all is well.
I tried the theadsafe version posted here, but no dice. My only guess is that the
responseXML object is temporarily placed on the current window during processing, and it
is getting lost when my dialog gets destroyed. Any insight, suggestions for workarounds,
or examples of similar code would be appreciated.
l nonactive x implementation for IE?
20050609 01:27:13 akrinsky [Reply]
What if your client doesn't want to enable ActiveX scripting?
req= new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
Has anyone implemented a pure DHTML/javascript version of this library for IE?
¡ nonactive x implementation for IE?
20050914 07:59:46 jjcorra [Reply]
yes
http://weblogs.asp.net/mschwarz/archive/2005/08/24/423495.aspx
l A threadsafe implementation for XMLHTTPRequest
20050527 12:48:37 brockweaver [Reply]
One of the things that pops out at most developers is the thread safety issues of the
example code. While the example works fine for testing, the very nature of programming
web apps in this manner means it is *extremely* likely multiple requests will be issued
concurrently.
The following is threadsafe code to do just that. I've used the Ajax moniker, as that is what
a lot of people call this technique. Personally, I don't care if they call it furrycatofdeath, as
long as it works. :)
Essentially, this code uses a technique called inner functions. These are useful in this
situation because the variables declared on the outer function are available to the inner
function and do not fall out of scope until *after* the inner function has been executed.
Since the request and callback variables (which contain function pointers to the good stuff)
are declared locally, each call to the ajaxSend function creates a new copy, so the previous
one is left intact.
A great discussion and analysis of this methodology (and other similar methodologies) is
described in detail at
http://jibbering.com/faq/faq_notes/closures.html
Mind you, I found this via a Google search and I am completely unrelated with its content,
so that url may change without my knowledge. Hopefully it will not, as it is a very clear
and well written article!
At any rate, the source follows. If you have issues with it, please let me know, as I haven't
had a chance to test many platforms yet. Thank you!
// threadsafe asynchronous XMLHTTPRequest code
function ajaxSend(url, callback){
// we use a javascript feature here called "inner functions"
// using these means the local variables retain their values after the outer function
// has returned. this is useful for thread safety, so
// reassigning the onreadystatechange function doesn't stomp over earlier requests.
function ajaxBindCallback(){
if (ajaxRequest.readyState == 4) {
if (ajaxRequest.status == 200) {
if (ajaxCallback){
ajaxCallback(ajaxRequest.responseXML);
} else {
alert('no callback defined');
}
} else {
alert("There was a problem retrieving the xml data:\n" + ajaxRequest.status + ":\t" +
ajaxRequest.statusText + "\n" + ajaxRequest.responseText);
}
}
}
// use a local variable to hold our request and callback until the inner function is called...
var ajaxRequest = null;
var ajaxCallback = callback;
// bind our callback then hit the server...
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
// moz et al
ajaxRequest = new XMLHttpRequest();
ajaxRequest.onreadystatechange = ajaxBindCallback;
ajaxRequest.open("GET", url, true);
ajaxRequest.send(null);
} else if (window.ActiveXObject) {
// ie
ajaxRequest = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
if (ajaxRequest) {
ajaxRequest.onreadystatechange = ajaxBindCallback;
ajaxRequest.open("GET", url, true);
ajaxRequest.send();
}
}
}
¡ A threadsafe implementation for XMLHTTPRequest
20050606 12:42:15 GoatMonkey [Reply]
Can you explain how to get data back from this function with the inner function? If I
wanted to use this function to send different URLs to it and get back either XML or
plain text as a response in a variable.
When I tried it, it seemed to work, but I had to modify the function to just write out
the xml to the screen within the inner function. It seems like it should be returned as
a variable to whereever it was called from.
Thanks.
n A threadsafe implementation for XMLHTTPRequest
20050817 19:28:23 dsphitz [Reply]
.
n A threadsafe implementation for XMLHTTPRequest
20050817 19:25:10 dsphitz [Reply]
I second that, I don't see how this is useful if you can't get the data out ...
n A threadsafe implementation for XMLHTTPRequest
20050805 09:08:18 js9777 [Reply]
l Why does the method take input and response?
20050517 11:58:36 tieTYT [Reply]
I still don't understand why this function:
function checkName(input, response)
needed to take an input and a response.
Why couldn't it be broken up into 2 functions?
¡ Why does the method take input and response?
20050517 12:20:44 drewmclellan [Reply]
You're right. It could be two functions. Making it one was simply a design choice. If
you were to have lots of different actions on a page resulting in an xmlhttprequest
call, it can be a lot tidier just to have a single function to handle each action.
If using two functions works better for you, there's no reason not to do it that way.
l Great introduction, now what about refreshing lists?
20050511 08:10:09 acidbox [Reply]
I found this article to be a great introduction to how the whole XML/JS interaction works.
My question is, if I used this to insert a record into a database using PHP/MySQL, how
would I go about refreshing a list of records with the newly inserted data appended to the
list?
¡ Great introduction, now what about refreshing lists?
20050511 12:52:31 sunnyO5 [Reply]
How about the method described in "Data the other way
round" (http://www.xml.com/cs/user/view/cs_msg/2750)?
l Knowledge Base Application
20050506 08:07:25 Julian Turner [Reply]
I have produced a simple example of AJAX use for a knowledge base.
www.baconbutty.com
In terms of history, my web page maintains the history, although it loses it when the
browser is closed.
l Chess GUI
20050424 04:22:46 JOlsen [Reply]
Nice tutorial.
I implemented this chess GUI after reading your article.
http://www.JesperOlsen.Net/PChess/
Cheers
Jesper
l Data the other way round
20050421 11:35:17 nGear [Reply]
This is data pulled by the client from the server.
Is there a way to push data from the server to the client?
(Without the client polling the server..)
i.e. update the client without any requests from the client itself.
¡ Data the other way round
20050430 22:56:19 Mahsood [Reply]
for example i want to have the stock market feed on my website..........
n Data the other way round
20050503 09:55:58 sunnyO5 [Reply]
Well, you can use polling: contact the server at regular intervals, say 1 minute,
assuming some other process updates the stock information. If the server
detects that there is a change (elaboration below), then it sends a new
information in response; otherwise, old one stays on the user's screen.
One way the server could detect a change is if you also send a time stamp
(hidden input field could store this) when the user first browses the web page.
The time stamp would have the time when the server information was last
changed. So when you refresh stock information after a specified amount of
interval, the time stamp is sent to the server, which compares it to the time
stamp that it (server) has. If the server version is newer, then new stock is sent;
else nothing.
I haven't implemented this in practice, but this should work.
¡ Data the other way round
20050425 00:32:44 sunnyO5 [Reply]
For most applications (I can think of), polling is adequate. What kind of applications
do you have in mind?
l Concerns
20050403 07:00:05 sunnyO5 [Reply]
I am excited about the possible applications of XMLHttpRequest Object but I have some
concerns:
1) Using XMLHttpRequest Object can save a lot of bandwidth but does it support caching
of webpages in the browser? Webpages using XMLHttpRequest Object seem to loose the
browser's history features; you can't use the Go back and forward buttons. Like in the
Apple's example
(http://developer.apple.com/internet/webcontent/XMLHttpRequestExample/example.html),
one has to make the choices again to view the information. So can't view the information
offline.
2) In the Google Suggest example, for each key press a request is sent to the server. So if
you have 50 users typing an average of 10 letters, you have more than 500 requests sent to
the server. Is this a huge concern for developing applications with this sort of feature (like
dynamic function lookup on php.net)?
Nevertheless, XMLHttpRequest Object promises a better interaction with the user.
Thanks.
¡ Help please
20050407 17:23:52 rkhlin [Reply]
XMLHTTPRequest is really fantastic to use.
But I am having a problem at the moment.
When I wrote a JS function which calls 1st url to change one div, then it calls
another url to change another div.
However only the 2nd url call is executed, the function simply ignore the 1st call (so
only div2 got updated).
Is there a way I can make sure it get the 1st url done and then the 2nd url
sequentially, Since no multithreaded is supported in current JS.
I used window.setTimeout(1000); in between 2 calls, then it wont go at all.
Please help!
n Help please
20050407 23:22:37 rkhlin [Reply]
Solved myself, use setTimeOut(func2,msec);
n Help please
20050421 11:27:32 nGear [Reply]
The second one is probably not coming through, because you donot wait
for the first request to finish. (i.e. the readystate did not get to 4 in the
eventhandler)
So your current solution won't work if the server takes a long time to
serve the xml for the first div.
n Help please
20050527 12:52:36 brockweaver [Reply]
See the response I just posted for a simple solution to this thread
safety problem. I didn't notice this thread before I posted, sorry
about that.
The name of my post is something like "A threadsafe
implementation of XMLHTTPRequest"
¡ Concerns
20050405 12:22:37 pandelic [Reply]
Google Suggest doesn't submit on each keystroke, but rather every set interval,
which reduces the number of requests for fast typists but still provides good response
time.
l Problem
20050324 14:35:49 Goonie [Reply]
I'd like to load an XML/HTML fragment from the server and replace a node in the
document by that fragment. That way, I could periodically refresh a specific region of the
page.
Here is what I'm doing in the readyStateChange handler:
e = document.getElementById('fragment');
e.parentNode.replaceChild(req.responseXML.firstChild, e);
Unfortunately, an XML fragment that is fetched via XMLHttpRequest is not accepted as
valid HTML by Gecko/Firefox: It only shows up as textonly, without any formatting.
What's worse, getElementById() does not locate my fragment after it has been replaced
once.
Is it possible to convert an XML node to an HTML element/node before insertion into the
DOM?
Are there any good books on the matter that go well beyond this article?
Regards,
Andreas
¡ Problem
20050407 23:21:31 rkhlin [Reply]
Wondering anyone knows how to solve this:
When I made a XMLHttpRequest, the returning HTML not only have HTML also
some javascript functions. However the Caller page don't seem to understand the
new javascript functions have been loaded in. So is there anyway we can force the
Caller to understand the new javascript functions???
¡ Problem
20050406 23:00:56 mdchaney [Reply]
<blockquote>I'd like to load an XML/HTML fragment from the server and replace a
node in the document by that fragment. That way, I could periodically refresh a
specific region of the page.</blockquote>
Use the "responseText" attribute to get at the html as text. Then use "innerHTML" to
place it where you want it.
If you don't need HTML, but you're just putting text in, you might also use the
simple DOM methods to create a text node, stick it on a paragraph, then put the
paragraph where you want it. Put your replaceable text in a div with a unique id so
you can find it easily, clean it out and change the text.
l I realize that I'm on XML.com, but....
20050323 07:09:49 mdchaney [Reply]
Please don't use XML for such a simple request. Actually, I'm not convinced that XML is
the best method for sending any data to JavaScript. I do a lot of work with
XMLHTTPRequest, and I simply use the standard JavaScript object literal and array literal
notations.
Now, I know the above is a simple demonstration, but for a simple flag response you need
to return only a 1 or 0. To keep with the example, though, you can return a JS object:
{ method: 'checkName', result: 1 };
Then, the function is simplified:
function processReqChange()
{
// only if req shows "complete"
if (req.readyState == 4) {
// only if "OK"
if (req.status == 200) {
// ...processing statements go here...
> eval('response = '+req.responseText);
eval(response.method + '(' + response.result + ');');
} else {
alert("There was a problem retrieving the XML data:\n" + req.statusText);
}
}
}
Obviously, for such a simple example there's little gain. But imagine trying to traverse an
entire DOM tree for a large document. Using literals, you can create native JS objects and
use the much simpler constructs such as "for/in" to manipulate the data. You can also
directly address known data, as shown above.
Make the choice between this:
response.method
or this:
response.getElementsByTagName('method')[0].firstChild.data;
It also probably goes without saying, but the backend code is also greatly simplified by not
having to create an XML document.
¡ I realize that I'm on XML.com, but....
20050405 17:31:50 emdee1 [Reply]
> Please don't use XML for such a simple request. Actually, I'm not convinced that
XML is the best method for sending any data to JavaScript. I do a lot of work with
XMLHTTPRequest, and I simply use the standard JavaScript object literal and array
literal notations.
That's great... until you want to reuse the logic for something that isn't JavaScript on
the otherside. This is exactly the type of thing that XML is for.
n I realize that I'm on XML.com, but....
20050406 23:06:21 mdchaney [Reply]
That's great... until you want to reuse the logic for something that isn't
JavaScript on the otherside. This is exactly the type of thing that XML is for.
It's easier to parse the JavaScript object literal notation than it is to parse XML.
Also, there are various libraries already available to do so, check
www.json.org for more details.
Given the simplification of using a simple object over using DOM methods to
get at your data (again: "response.method" vs.
"response.getElementsByTagName('method')[0].firstChild.data") it just seems
unlikely that bloating your code and making it unreadable on the JavaScript
side in the off chance you'll want to reuse this data elsewhere is the way to go.
Particularly given that using DOM methods in any language is likely to be as
painful.
n I realize that I'm on XML.com, but....
20050426 15:58:43 krufty [Reply]
incidentally, a programmer mistake by parsing literals on a data feed
could result in something like
If your datafeed contained:
alert("oops, thought i took this debug line out of here");
you'd execute it. The datafeed cannot accidentally cause the calling page
to execute javascript code unless you eval the data coming back.
n I realize that I'm on XML.com, but....
20050426 15:54:22 krufty [Reply]
I think the point is that if you have relatively complex data being
returned, and relatively complex data being parsed, its easier to absorb
the cost on the hardware side than the development side.
Sticking to XML when you can afford to makes it easier to validate
common logic between different languages (think C, C++) .. if you have
diff data formats, and diff parsers, and diff developers working on them,
you're bound to have more problems than if you data feed is built from a
consistant, human readable format. Sure, XML is expensive, but thats
the whole concept of data abstraction.
¡ I realize that I'm on XML.com, but....
20050329 22:32:16 w_laks [Reply]
I got a question. How exactly do you return JS Objects in the response? What should
be the document type. My server side php code is simply this:
<?php
echo "{ name: 'Lakshmi' }";
?>
This works but Mozilla keeps spinning forever I guess because it still expects more
content or something. IE does not spin and on Opera this does not work at all
presumably for lack of a HttpRequest object.
n I realize that I'm on XML.com, but....
20050401 07:04:20 mdchaney [Reply]
How exactly do you return JS Objects in the response? What should be the
document type?
Your code looks fine. Just use "text/plain" for the document type. When I do
this locally, I simply use ".txt" files.
I just finished a simple application for a client which has a 2.5M data file, the
entirety of which is a humongous JS object literal. Loading it locally,
including file reading, parsing, and object creation, takes about 23 seconds on
my computer here (1.8GHz with plenty of RAM). The application is
incredibly fast, particularly for dealing with a lot of data.
Using XML DOM in such an application would bloat the data file by at least
2530% (just looking at adding end tags), and bloat the code by an obnoxious
amount by having to deal with DOM instead of simple object properties.
¡ I realize that I'm on XML.com, but....
20050329 22:17:47 w_laks [Reply]
I tried your approach returning a JS Object within curly braces and it works. I am no
fan of longwinded Javastyle get/set methods either ...
l Working Example
20050314 03:28:27 Julian Turner [Reply]
If anyone is interested, I have used the XMLHTTP Request as the backbone to my website
www.baconbutty.com.
The database/index for the web site is a series of linked XML flat files currently, which I
access using a simple RegExp/String based XML reader I have written, to save server
overheads in parsing the XML database.
¡ Working Example
20050521 16:14:08 issue9mm [Reply]
Yeah, but your frontend interface seems to be written lazily. Make it work in
Firefox and I might bother the next time I see the link. Until then, stop trolling for
hits.
l The correct code
20050302 12:29:03 xmL [Reply]
You can find it here
http://www.xmlhttprequest.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9#9
Fixed some bugs for this good example.
xmL
l Re: Example
20050224 14:16:03 rk9728 [Reply]
Does anyone have a working example that we could see online? It's a bit frustrating to see
these great articles but not the actual *demo* itself :0
¡ Re: Example
20050225 00:28:52 djaekimaar [Reply]
I would like to echo that point. I have tried to get this working several times and had
no luck. I have a MS version working elsewhere but would rather use this tech. I am
using Firefox 1.0 which I think should be ok.
thanks
n Re: Example
20050226 01:06:41 djaekimaar [Reply]
To anyone else, if you follow the Apple link above it takes you to an example,
a little more complicated than above, suing iTunes RSS, but works very well.
l Good Article!
20050219 18:08:08 DanielBThurman [Reply]
I have pretty much followed your article and converted the code presented to use ASP code
and it works well. I do have one annoying issue.
When the name is typed and the onblur event is fired, a popup dialog on IE that warns the
user with this message: 'This page is accessing information that is not under its control.
This poses a security risk. Do you want to continue?'
Is there some way to block this message or does all browsers have this sort of thing built
in?
Other than that serverside processing is done without a roundtrip page refresh and there
is no noticeable clientside renderering and the response appears quickly, which is
impressive.
Dan Thurman
¡ Good Article!
20050228 10:18:17 jgraf [Reply]
This is a warning about crosssite scripting. Microsoft answers this same question in
this Q&A (http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/02/06/web/). The best
solution is to have your web page and the XMLHTTPRequest URL in the same
domain.
l XMLHTTP is Good but Needs WSSecurity
20050218 13:40:55 ErikJ [Reply]
We use XMLHTTPRequest to send/receive SOAP in a couple of products we ship. Two
other useful things we leverage: The Windows version knows how to handle NT
Challenge/Response, so you can call sites running under Windows Integrated Security
transparently. It also supports HTTP 1.1 compression, so you can GZIP your payload on
the server (SOAP usually compresses well).
But what we really need is the ability to sign/encrpyt messages using WSSecurity
standards. In Microsoft's case, version 5 of the MSXML parser kit (which contains
XMLHTTPRequest) has a few features, but you only get that version with Office 2003.
Version 6 is coming, but I've heard Microsoft may have to pull out the signing/encrypting
functions at least for now.
I haven't reviewed Mozilla/Safari support for WSSecurity yet, but having that
functionality in genreal would be quite helpful.
l micro applet can work as well
20050216 09:59:42 jseller [Reply]
Reminds me of a project in which we ended up using a very small applet working in the
background to coordinate between ecmascript in the browser (using
com.netscape.javascript.*) and interacting with the server through a persistent connection
(using java.net.*) No need from browser refresh for small updates, it handled the UI event
handling and was less than 10kb. This was around 1998 so it's kind of fuzzy, but I
remember it worked well.
I definitely remember that it seemed sort of weird at the time getting the Netscape
javascript classes to work in Internet Explorer on the Mac os9.
l DOM 3 & simplification
20050214 05:45:48 JimDabell [Reply]
Er, DOM 3 Load and Save isn't a "proposed specification". It was released as a
Recommendation in April 2004 and has been implemented by multiple browsers already.
It's never going to be as wellsupported as XMLHttpRequest because, hey, Internet
Explorer. that doesn't mean it isn't a stable, deployed specification though.
You can simplify the instantiation of the XMLHttpRequest object by simply including a
little bit of generic Javascript before you use the native object method:
if (typeof XMLHttpRequest != "object") {
function XMLHttpRequest() {
return new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
}
}
That way you can simply call new XMLHttpRequest() for Internet Explorer in the same
way that you do for all the other browsers.
¡ DOM 3 & simplification
20050228 09:45:56 Lars Huttar [Reply]
Thanks for this helpful tip. Especially good to know that XMLHttpRequest is part of
a public standard.
But you still have to do branching code when you *use* the XMLHttpRequest
object, right? E.g. looking at the sample code in the article, req.send() apparently
takes no argument in IE but takes a "null" argument in other browsers?
I guess you could handle this by writing more js helper functions.
n DOM 3 & simplification
20050304 02:34:59 JimDabell [Reply]
Actually, I take back what I said about DOM3LS. The "load" part of
DOM3LS was present in drafts, but didn't make it to the final
recommendation. Mozilla's documentation still lists it as part of DOM3LS
though, and Gecko/KHTML/Opera all implement it according to the draft
description.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=284737
While the MSDN documentation remains ambiguous with respect to what
happens when you pass null for the request body, I haven't found any problem
with doing so in practice.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en
us/xmlsdk/html/xmmthsendixmlhttprequest.asp
l XMLHTTPRequest and Javascript to create web applications with very dynamic, smooth
interfaces.
20050214 05:44:52 anand123 [Reply]
I just had a doubt, will this method work if Javascript is disabled on the client side ?? also
if the client does not have the latest version of MSXMLDOM (in case of IE) ?? Thanks in
advance.
¡ XMLHTTPRequest and Javascript to create web applications with very dynamic,
smooth interfaces.
20050214 05:47:35 JimDabell [Reply]
No, this won't work if Javascript is unavailable on the client.
http://jibbering.com/2002/4/httprequest.html has a more complex method that
handles different versions of MSXML.
l Coldfusion Server Script
20050211 08:05:06 makalu [Reply]
I rewrote the server script in coldfusion to see if I could get it working on my cfmx box,
here's the code from that, if anyone is interested...
<cfcontent type="text/xml" reset="yes">
<cfscript>
function nameInUse(q)
{
if (isdefined("q")){
switch(lcase(q))
{
case 'drew': {
return '1';
break;
}
case 'fred': {
return '1';
break;
}
default:
return '0';
}
}else
return '0';
}
</cfscript>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF8" standalone="yes"?>
<response>
<method>checkName</method>
<cfoutput><result>#nameInUse(url.q)#</result></cfoutput>
</response>
¡ Coldfusion Server Script
20050425 14:10:04 Kanjoos [Reply]
I could not make it work in coldfusion. I keyed in exactly.
I had two problems :
req.onsteadystatechange = processReqChange;
this does not call the function, it gives javascript error. It works when I change the
above statement to
req.onsteadystatechange = processReqChange();
But as a whole my script does not work.
My email address is kanjoossulekha@yahoo.com, can you guys send me the
working programs ??
Thanks,
Kanjoos
¡ Coldfusion Server Script
20050401 10:10:08 sk401k [Reply]
That looks cool. I really like the concept and i can vision it and see how far we can
go to create more user friendly applicatoins but some how this example is failing in
NS 7.2. It really irritates to see compatibility issues.
Thanks
SK401k
¡ Coldfusion Server Script
20050214 11:14:19 Sidvorak [Reply]
I had problems using the coldfusion code presented due to the <?xml?> declaration
not being on the first line of the returned document. If whitespace suppression is not
turned on in the Administrator you will have to use something like this. Notice that
there is no hard return after the <cfcontent> tag.
<cfprocessingdirective suppresswhitespace="yes">
<cfcontent type="text/xml" reset="yes"><?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF8"
standalone="yes"?>
<response>
<method>checkName</method>
<cfoutput><result>#nameInUse(url.q)#</result></cfoutput>
</response>
<cfscript>
function nameInUse(q)
{
if (isdefined("q")){
switch(lcase(q))
{
case 'drew': {
return '1';
break;
}
case 'fred': {
return '1';
break;
}
default:
return '0';
}
}else
return '0';
}
</cfscript></cfprocessingdirective>
n Coldfusion Server Script
20050216 05:41:31 makalu [Reply]
Good point Sidvorak...sorry to leave that out.
l XSL
20050211 02:13:32 redben [Reply]
I have been working in this style (XML Javascript XSL) for about 2 years now but only
with ie. Mozilla had little xml support at that time. I know that now it fully does, and i'm
happy for that :) since it will unlock me from developping for ms ie.
But there is one thing a still don't know how is mozilla's XSL implementation ? somebody
ever tried it ? i'd really like to go crossbrowser again.
¡ XSL and XML in Mozilla
20050211 05:00:33 Martin_Honnen [Reply]
Mozilla 1.0 <http://www.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla1.0.html> was released June 5,
2002 and already had support for XMLHttpRequest.
As for XSLT 1.0 support, it is also there since Mozilla 1.0 though scripting it is
supported since 1.2 I think. See the FAQ for details and differences if you want to do
clientside XSLT in both IE/Win and Mozilla:
<http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xslt/faq.html>
There is also the Sarissa project: <http://sarissa.sourceforge.net/doc/> which aims to
ease the task of XML/XMLHttpRequest/XPath/XSLT scripting across browsers.
l Very nice article
20050210 18:47:27 robhudson [Reply]
I'd like to see more like this as I think this is a technology that's taking off. Maybe more
complicated XML requests and responses, how to send data with POST, etc.
¡ Very nice article
20050313 09:33:34 nicolash [Reply]
to POST instead of GET:
xmlHttpRequestInitialize();
req.onreadystatechange = xmlHttpRequestProcessReqChange;
req.open('POST', self.location.pathname);
req.setRequestHeader('ContentType', 'application/xwwwformurlencoded');
req.send('Whatevername=wahatevervalue&Whatevername2=wahatevervalue2');
you need to set the header
and put the data into the req.send.
(obviously better to fill the req.send by a function instead of hardcoding it!)
l Don't forget www in the URL
20050210 09:29:16 ideawire_bb [Reply]
Good article, easy to follow.
For some reason, in all browsers I tested (IE 6 Win, Safari Mac, Firefox Mac / Win) it only
works if you utilize the root url, ie:
http://www.domain.com/form.html
The script simply won't work if you try and access it this way:
http://domain.com/form.html
Hope this saves someone the time and frustration I experienced.
¡ Don't forget www in the URL
20050212 07:53:25 ErnNJ [Reply]
For security reasons the URL must be fully qualified. I put the page in the same
directory and did this:
url = 'checkUserName.php?q=' + input;
I am also curios about the “response == ‘1’” not working. I have always found
JavaScript to be rather lax when it comes to data types and don’t understand why it
is picky here. If anyone can explain it would be appreciated.
n Don't forget www in the URL
20051101 04:25:02 x3 [Reply]
This happens because of security reasons and
in IE (in other browsers i havent tested) it can be solved change
window.domain property
It can be change only to up level, so
when page is loaded as "http://www.domain.com/form.html" the domain
property contains string "www.domain.com" and changing it to "domain.com"
will enable javascript to load files by url "http://domain.com/form.html"
and other in this domain
(P.S. sorry for my english)
l Nice, but one small error
20050209 23:53:32 dzac [Reply]
I tried the example, and at least in Safari and FireFox 1.0 on the Mac, the function
'checkName' should read:
...
if (response == 1)
...
rather than:
if (response == '1')
(note the quotes).
With that change everything worked as advertised.
¡ Nice, but one small error
20050909 06:08:34 PravinNirmal [Reply]
I am loading one HTML page content in a div tag, using XMLHTTP. But thsi
content is having the Javascript function and one submit button calling this
Javascript. Now what happens, when we load the content in the div, and then click
on this Button, it does nto recognise the Javascript function and says 'Object
Undefined' . This means the XMLHTTP loaded the content as notmal text or and not
as HTML or JS, hence that function is not found by browser. Please suggest if you
are having any solutions.
n Nice, but one small error
20051026 07:40:08 TienChih.Wang [Reply]
I did same thing, but that javascript function works fine in my case.
I have another question about the xmlhttp responseText update. I retrieve two
xmlhttp objects simultaneously.
I try to keep one xmlhttp.responseText as static
InnerHtml and still updating the other(Using setTimeout() ..). How to achieve
this?
Regards,
TienChih Wang
Meta Job Search Engine
http://www.onsofts.com/deepJobSearch.jsp