CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptajax
P. Lau
P. Lau

Reputation: 165

AJAX code order's difference

I saw most of the AJAX examples in W3school look like this:

function loadDoc() {
    var xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
    xhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
        if (xhttp.readyState == 4 && xhttp.status == 200) {
            document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = xhttp.responseText; //get response
        }
    };
    xhttp.open("GET", "ajax_info.txt", true);
    xhttp.send(); //send request
}

I changed the order of the code like this:

function loadDoc() {
    var xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
    xhttp.open("GET", "ajax_info.txt", true);
    xhttp.send(); //send request
    xhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
        if (xhttp.readyState == 4 && xhttp.status == 200) {
            document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = xhttp.responseText; //get response
        }
    };
}

and it seems like it works too, and my brain will think second one more logic.

So my question is: Is there any rules on this AJAX code's order? Will it make any differences for the 2 example above in any situation?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 57

Answers (1)

Chirag Ravindra
Chirag Ravindra

Reputation: 4830

The AJAX request is handled asynchronously so the order of definition of the callback does not matter.

I have annotated your code with some notes. The execution order (in this case) will be:

1 -> 2 -> 3 (Request Triggered) -> 4 (Define callback)
          |
          5 (Callback function called asynchronously every time the request state changes)
          |
          6 Execute logic if request is successful

Steps 1 (Creation of XHR Object), 2 (Opening request) and 3 (sending request) must be in sequence. Step 4 can happen any time after the creation of the object as long as it's before the network response or state change happens.

Reading up on AJAX and Asynchronous Callbacks in JS will help understand this better. You can start here.

function loadDoc() {
  //1. Create XHR Object
  var xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
  
  //2. Define request parameters
  xhttp.open("GET", "ajax_info.txt", true);
  
  //3. Trigger Request
  xhttp.send();
  
  //4. Define callback for state change
  xhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
  //5. This code is executed every time the state of the request changes
    if (xhttp.readyState == 4 && xhttp.status == 200) {
      //6. This code executes only if readyState is 4 (request is done) and the http status is 200 (success)
      document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = xhttp.responseText; //get response
    }
  };
}

Upvotes: 1

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