JavaScript
Contents
Javascript
Please read the well written Javascript tutorial at w3schools
http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp
Asynchronous JavaScript And XML
AJAX is a way to use existing standards. It provides a framework for javascript to get the data from external servers. Javascript object XMLHttpRequest is used exchange data with other servers without reloading the page. This provides less data transmission between the servers and the clients and makes Internet applications smaller, faster and more user-friendly.
XMLHttpRequest is supported by all modern browsers however there are slight changes (in case of IE, large changes) so for the rest of this module, we will assume Firefox as our browser.
XMLHttpRequest Object
XMLHttpRequest provides the communication with the remote servers. Hence, the first thing you need is to initialize it.
var xmlHttp; xmlHttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
Once you have an XMLHttpRequest, you can use it to send data to a server. Initially, you need to connect your server side page:
xmlHttp.open("METHOD","REMOTE_URL",ASYNCRONOUS_FLAG);
where METHOD is "GET" or "POST", REMOTE_URL is the page that you want to communicate and ASYNCRONOUS_FLAG is whether the call is going to asyncronous. In asyncronous communication, you can let your client do other things while waiting for server response. Once you have the object initialized, you can then use send method to send your request. Note that, there is not explicit data setting. That is because you send your data withing the url.
xmlHttp.send(null);
XMLHttpRequest object has an attribute readyState that stores the state of the current status.
| State | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | The request is not initialized |
| 1 | The request has been set up |
| 2 | The request has been sent |
| 3 | The request is in process |
| 4 | The request is complete |
For example, when a request is sent, the state is set to 3. Every time its state change,the object calls a function specified by the attribute onreadystatechange. So before calling a remote site, you should setup a new function:
xmlHttp.onreadystatechange=function() {
alert('state changed to '+xmlHttp.readyState);
}
This is where the asyncronousity comes. Once you send a request, you access the response only onreadystatechange function. Meanwhile, your client page can be doing other things. If you are waiting for a response from the server, you should check whether the readyState is 4, corresponding to completed request. The server response is returned at XMLHttpRequest's responseText attribute.
xmlHttp.onreadystatechange=function() {
if(xmlHttp.readyState==4){
.... do some cool stuff ...
}
}
For example, lets assume you have following html file server.html
<html>
<body>
hello world
</body>
</html>
This server page just prints hello world message.
Here is an AJAX implementation that gets the message from the server and prints it.
<html>
<body>
<script>
var xmlHttp;
xmlHttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
xmlHttp.open("GET","server.html",true);
xmlHttp.onreadystatechange=function() {
if(xmlHttp.readyState==4){
var pElement=document.getElementById("msg");
pElement.innerHTML=xmlHttp.responseText;
}
}
xmlHttp.send(null);
</script>
<p id="msg"></p>
</body>
</html>
Sending Parameters
The parameters are send either in the url (to, for example, a PHP page) or through send function. Consider following PHP code that takes two parameters, multiplies them and return the result.
multiply.php
<html>
<body>
<? echo $_GET["x"]*$_GET["y"]?>
</body>
</html>
We can then use AJAX to get the multiplication of two numbers:
multiply-ajax.php
<html>
<body>
<script>
function multiply (){
var xmlHttp;
xmlHttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
var x,y;
x=document.getElementById("input_x").value;
y=document.getElementById("input_y").value;
xmlHttp.open("GET","multiply.php?x="+x+"&y="+y,true);
xmlHttp.onreadystatechange=function() {
if(xmlHttp.readyState==4){
var pElement=document.getElementById("msg");
pElement.innerHTML=xmlHttp.responseText;
}
}
xmlHttp.send(null);
}
</script>
x:<input id="input_x" type="text"/ ><br>
y:<input id="input_y" type="text"/>
<a href="javascript:multiply();">Multiply</a>
<br>
------------------------</br>
Result:
<p id="msg"></p>
</body>
</html>
Note that x and y values are sent in url. You can also send them in send function, provided that your receiving page asumes they are form posts.
multiply-post.php
<html>
<body>
<? echo $_POST["x"]*$_POST["y"]?>
</body>
</html>
multiply-ajax.php
<html>
<body>
<script>
function multiply (){
var xmlHttp;
xmlHttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
var x,y;
x=document.getElementById("input_x").value;
y=document.getElementById("input_y").value;
var req="x="+x+"&y="+y;
xmlHttp.open("POST","multiply.php",true);
xmlHttp.onreadystatechange=function() {
if(xmlHttp.readyState==4){
var pElement=document.getElementById("msg");
pElement.innerHTML=xmlHttp.responseText;
}
}
xmlHttp.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
xmlHttp.setRequestHeader("Content-length", req.length);
xmlHttp.setRequestHeader("Connection", "close");
xmlHttp.send(req);
}
</script>
x:<input id="input_x" type="text"/ ><br>
y:<input id="input_y" type="text"/>
<a href="javascript:multiply();">Multiply</a>
<br>
------------------------</br>
Result:
<p id="msg"></p>
</body>
</html>
Moving a target with Jquery
<html>
<head>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
// these are for storing target locations
var targetLeft=0;
var targetTop=0;
function moveTarget(){
targetLeft+=10; //increase target location
targetTop+=10;
$("#target").css("top",targetTop); //move target to (top,left)
$("#target").css("left",targetLeft);
if(targetLeft<200) { //stop if we reached left=200
window.setTimeout("moveTarget()",200); //set the next timer
}
}
$(document).ready(function() { //at the beginning create a clock timeout
window.setTimeout("moveTarget()",200); //call this function in 200 ms.
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<!-- this is my target-->
<img id="target" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/Smiley.svg/180px-Smiley.svg.png" style="position:relative"/>
</body>
</html>
Teams for this module
Team 0: Gail Crystal Burks , Young Kook Park Please use zoo.cse.wustl.edu
Team 1: William Cannon Fargo , Andrew Tateh Shaw Please use zoo.cse.wustl.edu
Team 2: Jacqueline Rose Steege , Andrew Nemec Bort Please use zoo.cse.wustl.edu
Team 3: Jonathan Kirst, Adam Michael Basloe Please use zoo.cse.wustl.edu
Team 4: John Thomas Pizzini , Michael Browning Please use oz.cse.wustl.edu
Team 5: Paul Manfred Heider, Michael Frances Fahey Please use oz.cse.wustl.edu
Team 6: Mark Evan Davis , Philip Jon Melzer Please use oz.cse.wustl.edu
Team 7: Andrew David Kanyer , Natalie Nikolayevna Sklobovskaya Please use oz.cse.wustl.edu
Team 8: Jonathan Matthew Wald , Vanetia Nikole Cannon , Benjamin Reiter Please use wad.cse.wustl.edu
