CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptajax
Celeritas
Celeritas

Reputation: 15091

Can someone explain to me what this JavaScript/Ajax part of code does?

I'm learning Ajax and I'm going through this example. What does this do? I don't understand the syntax variable = function(){ how is a function being assigned to a variable?

xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function()
  {
  if (xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200)
    {
    document.getElementById("txtHint").innerHTML=xmlhttp.responseText;
    }
  }

Upvotes: -1

Views: 1241

Answers (4)

asawyer
asawyer

Reputation: 17808

I'd like to address this comment: I've never been able to understand callbacks.

Consider this analogy:

You need want to rent that movie that just came out on VHS, so you call Blockbuster and ask the attendant if they have a copy. Sadly though, they are super busy dealing with thousands of David Bowie fans who are trying to rent "Labyrinth" all at the same time and he does't have time to look up the information for you. So instead, he asks for your phone number. At some point in the future when the hordes of people have left and he has the time, he looks up the info you need, and calls you back on the number you provided. Turns out the movie is sold out though, so he suggests "Dark Crystal" instead.

In your case you are dealing with an entity that is going to take a long time to do it's work as it needs to talk to remote servers, so it essentially asks you for your phone number so that when it's done you are called back as it were, with the requested data.

Does it make more sense now?

Upvotes: 1

David Barker
David Barker

Reputation: 14620

I know everyone is saying it's a callback specifically but the question you asked could better be answered by comparing what you're puzzled over with some more familiar code.

function myFunction()
{
    ...
}

So we know that calling myFunction() will run that code.

In Javascript, you can declare a function in a number of ways. This means that this:

var myFunction = function()
{
    ...
}

Does exactly the same as the first example above. It creates a function that you can call using myFunction().

Add the callback into the mix in your question and we can see that

xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function()
{
    ...
}

is nothing more than assigning a function and containing code to the onreadystatechange property of object xmlhttp. Meaning that your code within the function will be called every time there is a state change in the xmlhttp object.

Upvotes: 2

Clyde Lobo
Clyde Lobo

Reputation: 9174

onreadystatechange is a callback. It gets triggered when a particular event happens. onreadystate is happens when the requests ready state changes.

In short onreadystate

Stores a function (or the reference of a function) to be called automatically each time the readyState property changes

Now for the line xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200

readyState : Holds the status of the XMLHttpRequest.

 Changes from 0 to 4: 
0: request not initialized 
1: server connection established
2: request received 
3: processing request 
4: request finished and response is ready

And status Holds status 

200: "OK"
404: Page not found

So xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200 condition is true when the response is ready and there is no issues

xmlhttp.responseText contains the response sent from the server.

So document.getElementById("txtHint").innerHTML=xmlhttp.responseText; changes the HTML of the element with id txtHint to the response that was received.

Hope all the above made sense!!!

Upvotes: 1

Edward Ruchevits
Edward Ruchevits

Reputation: 6696

When readyState changes, if request finished and response is ready (readyState==4) and document loaded correctly (HTTP Status Code 200 = OK!), append response text to the element with id #txtHint.

onreadystatechange stores a function (or the name of a function) to be called automatically each time the readyState property changes.

readyState holds the status of the XMLHttpRequest. Changes from 0 to 4:

  • 0: request not initialized
  • 1: server connection established
  • 2: request received
  • 3: processing request
  • 4: request finished and response is ready

status takes HTTP response codes:

  • 200: "OK"
  • 404: Page not found

Upvotes: 2

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