Making simultaneous AJAX calls to separate Django views - ajax

Question

I have a Django view that runs a particular function when a POST request is received.
Snippet:
def run_function(request):
if request.method == 'POST':
run_some_function()
This is called via AJAX as follows:
$.ajax({
'type' : 'POST',
'url' : '/run_function/',
'data' : data,
'success' : function(json) {
// Display results to user
}
});
This works as expected. However, this particular function can take a while to run, so I want to display progress information to the user.
Luckily, I have another function that can return the progress (an integer between 0-100) of the task.
Snippet:
def get_progress(request):
progress = calculate_progress()
return HttpResponse(json.dumps(progress), content_type="application/json")
I can then make an AJAX call every X seconds to get the progress and update my progress bar:
function check_progress() {
$.ajax({
'type' : 'POST',
'url' : '/get_progress/',
'success' : function(response) {
if (response >= 100) {
// Update progress bar to 100% and clearInterval
} else {
// Update the progress bar based on the value returned by get_progress
}
}
});
}
var check = setInterval(check_progress, 500);
The problem is...how can I do both simultaneously? I need to be able to make the AJAX call to run the function and make the AJAX calls to monitor progress, at the same time.
Are there any suggestions for how to accomplish this? Or perhaps a better design than making two AJAX calls?
Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

The A in AJAX stands for Asynchronous. You don't need to do anything special. If you have your views and progress sorted out, all you need to do is:
$.ajax({
'type' : 'POST',
'url' : '/run_function/',
'data' : data,
'success' : function(json) {
// Display results to user
}
});
var check = setInterval(check_progress, 500);