Ajax error "undefined" in IE - ajax

I am pretty new to Ajax. I'm trying to put some specific portions of an XML file into a div on my page, and the following works in every recent browser except IE:
var xhr = false;
//Executed to request content from the server
function setContent(){
if(window.XMLHttpRequest){
xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
} else {
if(window.ActiveXObject){
xhr = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
}
}
xhr.onreadystatechange = showContent;
xhr.open("GET", "ajax/art.xml", true);
xhr.send(null);
}
//Executed to set the appropriate text once the server has gathered the data
function showContent(){
if(xhr.readyState == 4){
if(xhr.status == 200 || window.location.href.indexOf("http") == -1){
var newData = xhr.responseXML.getElementsByTagName(curPage).textContent;
}
var textBox = document.getElementById("textBox");
textBox.innerHTML = newData;
}
}
(The value of curPage is set elsewhere in the code and seems to have the correct value)
When I execute this code in IE on the server I get the word "undefined" in the textBox Div instead of the content grabbed from the XML document. How do I resolve this?
Thanks in advance <><
Thanks bobince, but that doesn't seem to work either.
That's an interesting note about textContent. I tried:
if(xhr.responseXML.getElementsByTagName(allPages[curPage])[curStage].textContent != undefined){
var newText = xhr.responseXML.getElementsByTagName(curPage)[curStage].textContent;
} else {
var newText = xhr.responseXML.getElementsByTagName(curPage)[curStage].innerText
}
}
since innerText should work in every browser except FF and textContent should work in every browser except IE, but I still get "undefined" in IE.
Furthermore, if I just use innerText and forget about FF compatibility, I get "undefined" in every browser, not only IE.
Not sure how to remedy this...
Here's the live site if that helps:
www.tcmulder.com/art
(Oh, and notice I'm using (curPage)[curStage], fixes the first problem you noted)

getElementsByTagName(curPage).textContent
shouldn't work in any browser. getElementsByTagName returns a list of elements, not a single element. A NodeList has no textContent property.
Anyway, IE doesn't support the DOM Level 3 Core property textContent. If you're sure there's exactly one text node inside the element, you can read its content using:
var el= xhr.responseXML.getElementsByTagName(curPage)[0];
var text= el.firstChild.data;
If the element might be empty you could check for that (el.firstChild!==null); if there's mixed text and element content you would need to write a text-extractor function that emulates textContent.

Switch your initial conditional to check for the MS specific object first and then check for XMLHTTPRequest.
Later versions of IE "support" XMLHttpRequest but it doesn't work. If you switch your conditional, your code should work.
function setContent(){
if(window.ActiveXObject){
xhr = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
} else {
if(window.XMLHttpRequest){
xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
}
}
xhr.onreadystatechange = showContent;
xhr.open("GET", "ajax/art.xml", true);
xhr.send(null);
}

Thanks for your help; I've run out of time on this site so I had to go with jQuery after all.
function setContent(){
$.ajax({
type: "GET",
url: "ajax/art.xml",
dataType: "xml",
success: function(xml){
var curData = curPage + ":eq(" + [curStage] + ")";
var theText = $(xml).find(curData).text();
$("#textBox span").replaceWith("<span>" + theText + "</span>");
ajaxReady = true;
}
});
}

Related

Multiple XMLHttpRequest

I call ajax request in a loop. Around 20 of them. But few are getting aborted. How can I avoid that ?
Most of them are getting aborted.
function callURLAsync(url)
{
var xmlHttpReq = false;
var self = this;
// Mozilla/Safari
if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
{
self.xmlHttpReq = new XMLHttpRequest();
}
// IE
else if (window.ActiveXObject)
{
self.xmlHttpReq = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
}
self.xmlHttpReq.open('POST', url, true);
self.xmlHttpReq.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
self.xmlHttpReq.onreadystatechange = function()
{
if (self.xmlHttpReq.readyState == 4) {
}
}
self.xmlHttpReq.send();
}
function startLogout(){
for(var i=0;i< 20;i++){
callURLAsync("myDummyURl");
}
}
Thanks
Sailesh
Reasons for Ajax calls to get aborted:
Form or page navigation - cancel the action that is causing navigation, you can not cancel or delay onunload
Calling abort
Reusing same XMLHttpRequest object
In your case it sounds like the button is navigating the page away. What you need to do is use event.preventDefault() or return false from the button click. After all the Ajax calls are done, you can use window.location to do the redirection.

How can I catch and process the data from the XHR responses using casperjs?

The data on the webpage is displayed dynamically and it seems that checking for every change in the html and extracting the data is a very daunting task and also needs me to use very unreliable XPaths. So I would want to be able to extract the data from the XHR packets.
I hope to be able to extract information from XHR packets as well as generate 'XHR' packets to be sent to the server.
The extracting information part is more important for me because the sending of information can be handled easily by automatically triggering html elements using casperjs.
I'm attaching a screenshot of what I mean.
The text in the response tab is the data I need to process afterwards. (This XHR response has been received from the server.)
This is not easily possible, because the resource.received event handler only provides meta data like url, headers or status, but not the actual data. The underlying phantomjs event handler acts the same way.
Stateless AJAX Request
If the ajax call is stateless, you may repeat the request
casper.on("resource.received", function(resource){
// somehow identify this request, here: if it contains ".json"
// it also also only does something when the stage is "end" otherwise this would be executed two times
if (resource.url.indexOf(".json") != -1 && resource.stage == "end") {
var data = casper.evaluate(function(url){
// synchronous GET request
return __utils__.sendAJAX(url, "GET");
}, resource.url);
// do something with data, you might need to JSON.parse(data)
}
});
casper.start(url); // your script
You may want to add the event listener to resource.requested. That way you don't need to way for the call to complete.
You can also do this right inside of the control flow like this (source: A: CasperJS waitForResource: how to get the resource i've waited for):
casper.start(url);
var res, resData;
casper.waitForResource(function check(resource){
res = resource;
return resource.url.indexOf(".json") != -1;
}, function then(){
resData = casper.evaluate(function(url){
// synchronous GET request
return __utils__.sendAJAX(url, "GET");
}, res.url);
// do something with the data here or in a later step
});
casper.run();
Stateful AJAX Request
If it is not stateless, you would need to replace the implementation of XMLHttpRequest. You will need to inject your own implementation of the onreadystatechange handler, collect the information in the page window object and later collect it in another evaluate call.
You may want to look at the XHR faker in sinon.js or use the following complete proxy for XMLHttpRequest (I modeled it after method 3 from How can I create a XMLHttpRequest wrapper/proxy?):
function replaceXHR(){
(function(window, debug){
function args(a){
var s = "";
for(var i = 0; i < a.length; i++) {
s += "\t\n[" + i + "] => " + a[i];
}
return s;
}
var _XMLHttpRequest = window.XMLHttpRequest;
window.XMLHttpRequest = function() {
this.xhr = new _XMLHttpRequest();
}
// proxy ALL methods/properties
var methods = [
"open",
"abort",
"setRequestHeader",
"send",
"addEventListener",
"removeEventListener",
"getResponseHeader",
"getAllResponseHeaders",
"dispatchEvent",
"overrideMimeType"
];
methods.forEach(function(method){
window.XMLHttpRequest.prototype[method] = function() {
if (debug) console.log("ARGUMENTS", method, args(arguments));
if (method == "open") {
this._url = arguments[1];
}
return this.xhr[method].apply(this.xhr, arguments);
}
});
// proxy change event handler
Object.defineProperty(window.XMLHttpRequest.prototype, "onreadystatechange", {
get: function(){
// this will probably never called
return this.xhr.onreadystatechange;
},
set: function(onreadystatechange){
var that = this.xhr;
var realThis = this;
that.onreadystatechange = function(){
// request is fully loaded
if (that.readyState == 4) {
if (debug) console.log("RESPONSE RECEIVED:", typeof that.responseText == "string" ? that.responseText.length : "none");
// there is a response and filter execution based on url
if (that.responseText && realThis._url.indexOf("whatever") != -1) {
window.myAwesomeResponse = that.responseText;
}
}
onreadystatechange.call(that);
};
}
});
var otherscalars = [
"onabort",
"onerror",
"onload",
"onloadstart",
"onloadend",
"onprogress",
"readyState",
"responseText",
"responseType",
"responseXML",
"status",
"statusText",
"upload",
"withCredentials",
"DONE",
"UNSENT",
"HEADERS_RECEIVED",
"LOADING",
"OPENED"
];
otherscalars.forEach(function(scalar){
Object.defineProperty(window.XMLHttpRequest.prototype, scalar, {
get: function(){
return this.xhr[scalar];
},
set: function(obj){
this.xhr[scalar] = obj;
}
});
});
})(window, false);
}
If you want to capture the AJAX calls from the very beginning, you need to add this to one of the first event handlers
casper.on("page.initialized", function(resource){
this.evaluate(replaceXHR);
});
or evaluate(replaceXHR) when you need it.
The control flow would look like this:
function replaceXHR(){ /* from above*/ }
casper.start(yourUrl, function(){
this.evaluate(replaceXHR);
});
function getAwesomeResponse(){
return this.evaluate(function(){
return window.myAwesomeResponse;
});
}
// stops waiting if window.myAwesomeResponse is something that evaluates to true
casper.waitFor(getAwesomeResponse, function then(){
var data = JSON.parse(getAwesomeResponse());
// Do something with data
});
casper.run();
As described above, I create a proxy for XMLHttpRequest so that every time it is used on the page, I can do something with it. The page that you scrape uses the xhr.onreadystatechange callback to receive data. The proxying is done by defining a specific setter function which writes the received data to window.myAwesomeResponse in the page context. The only thing you need to do is retrieving this text.
JSONP Request
Writing a proxy for JSONP is even easier, if you know the prefix (the function to call with the loaded JSON e.g. insert({"data":["Some", "JSON", "here"],"id":"asdasda")). You can overwrite insert in the page context
after the page is loaded
casper.start(url).then(function(){
this.evaluate(function(){
var oldInsert = insert;
insert = function(json){
window.myAwesomeResponse = json;
oldInsert.apply(window, arguments);
};
});
}).waitFor(getAwesomeResponse, function then(){
var data = JSON.parse(getAwesomeResponse());
// Do something with data
}).run();
or before the request is received (if the function is registered just before the request is invoked)
casper.on("resource.requested", function(resource){
// filter on the correct call
if (resource.url.indexOf(".jsonp") != -1) {
this.evaluate(function(){
var oldInsert = insert;
insert = function(json){
window.myAwesomeResponse = json;
oldInsert.apply(window, arguments);
};
});
}
}).run();
casper.start(url).waitFor(getAwesomeResponse, function then(){
var data = JSON.parse(getAwesomeResponse());
// Do something with data
}).run();
I may be late into the party, but the answer may help someone like me who would fall into this problem later in future.
I had to start with PhantomJS, then moved to CasperJS but finally settled with SlimerJS. Slimer is based on Phantom, is compatible with Casper, and can send you back the response body using the same onResponseReceived method, in "response.body" part.
Reference: https://docs.slimerjs.org/current/api/webpage.html#webpage-onresourcereceived
#Artjom's answer's doesn't work for me in the recent Chrome and CasperJS versions.
Based on #Artjom's answer and based on gilly3's answer on how to replace XMLHttpRequest, I have composed a new solution that should work in most/all versions of the different browsers. Works for me.
SlimerJS cannot work on newer version of FireFox, therefore no good for me.
Here is the the generic code to add a listner to load of XHR (not dependent on CasperJS):
var addXHRListener = function (XHROnStateChange) {
var XHROnLoad = function () {
if (this.readyState == 4) {
XHROnStateChange(this)
}
}
var open_original = XMLHttpRequest.prototype.open;
XMLHttpRequest.prototype.open = function (method, url, async, unk1, unk2) {
this.requestUrl = url
open_original.apply(this, arguments);
};
var xhrSend = XMLHttpRequest.prototype.send;
XMLHttpRequest.prototype.send = function () {
var xhr = this;
if (xhr.addEventListener) {
xhr.removeEventListener("readystatechange", XHROnLoad);
xhr.addEventListener("readystatechange", XHROnLoad, false);
} else {
function readyStateChange() {
if (handler) {
if (handler.handleEvent) {
handler.handleEvent.apply(xhr, arguments);
} else {
handler.apply(xhr, arguments);
}
}
XHROnLoad.apply(xhr, arguments);
setReadyStateChange();
}
function setReadyStateChange() {
setTimeout(function () {
if (xhr.onreadystatechange != readyStateChange) {
handler = xhr.onreadystatechange;
xhr.onreadystatechange = readyStateChange;
}
}, 1);
}
var handler;
setReadyStateChange();
}
xhrSend.apply(xhr, arguments);
};
}
Here is CasperJS code to emit a custom event on load of XHR:
casper.on("page.initialized", function (resource) {
var emitXHRLoad = function (xhr) {
window.callPhantom({eventName: 'xhr.load', eventData: xhr})
}
this.evaluate(addXHRListener, emitXHRLoad);
});
casper.on('remote.callback', function (data) {
casper.emit(data.eventName, data.eventData)
});
Here is a code to listen to "xhr.load" event and get the XHR response body:
casper.on('xhr.load', function (xhr) {
console.log('xhr load', xhr.requestUrl)
console.log('xhr load', xhr.responseText)
});
Additionally, you can also directly download the content and manipulate it later.
Here is the example of the script I am using to retrieve a JSON and save it locally :
var casper = require('casper').create({
pageSettings: {
webSecurityEnabled: false
}
});
var url = 'https://twitter.com/users/username_available?username=whatever';
casper.start('about:blank', function() {
this.download(url, "hop.json");
});
casper.run(function() {
this.echo('Done.').exit();
});

Building Chrome extension using xpath and Cross-Origin XMLHttpRequest

I'm currently trying to build my first Chrome extension but I'm having a slight issue with my code.
I want to use XMLHTTPRequest and xpath to display a specific number from an external website as a badge on my icon. The code I'm using in my background.js file is as follows:
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open("GET", "http://www.example.com", true);
xhr.onreadystatechange = function() {
if (xhr.readyState == 4) {
// innerText does not let the attacker inject HTML elements.
document.getElementById("resp").innerText = xhr.responseText;
}
}
xhr.send();
var xmlDoc = xhr.responseXML;
xmlDoc.setProperty('SelectionLanguage', 'XPath');
var badgeText = xmldoc.documentElement.selectSingleNode("//[#id='main']/div/div/section/div[1]/div[2]");
chrome.browserAction.setBadgeText({text: badgeText});
chrome.browserAction.setBadgeBackgroundColor({color: "#1f729f"});
I know this code is probably pretty horrible but this is my first extension and I'd really appreciate any help.
Thanks in advance.
It looks like you are expecting some immediate response after xhr.send();
Here the code snipet which is working in one of my extensions (notice this in the callback function):
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open("GET", "http://www.example.com", true);
xhr.onreadystatechange = function() {
console.log("XHR callback readyState = " + this.readyState);
if (this.readyState == 4) {
// innerText does not let the attacker inject HTML elements.
document.getElementById("resp").innerText = this.responseText;
var xmlDoc = this.responseXML;
xmlDoc.setProperty('SelectionLanguage', 'XPath');
var badgeText = xmldoc.documentElement.selectSingleNode("//[#id='main']/div/div/section/div[1]/div[2]");
chrome.browserAction.setBadgeText({text: badgeText});
chrome.browserAction.setBadgeBackgroundColor({color: "#1f729f"});
}
}
xhr.send();
This way the code would be executed only after the response is available.
Hope this helps ;-)

Rest webservice call for chrome browser

My first post
Im trying to call a rest webservice to populate my lov's dynamically using AJAX. It works fine for me in IE8 but not in chrome. I couldn't reach a particular line while executing that I mentioned in the below code. Am i missing anything. Please help.
07-24-2012 - I found the root cause for this issue. Its because of the application cache code specified in the html code. once i remove that the ajax call works fine. But my need is to make this page available in offline mode. Any suggestion on this to make the page available offline and also the ajax webservice calls works fine?. Thanks,
<script type="text/javascript">
var eleCount;
var xmlDoc;
function init() {
eleCount =0;
}
function populate()
{
var xmlhttp;
if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
{// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
alert("Window for chrome");
xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
}
else
{// code for IE6, IE5
alert("Else Window for IE");
xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
xmlDoc = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
xmlDoc.async = false;
}
var url = "http://localhost:7101/Mobile-MobileModel-context- root/jersey/Search/searchLov";
xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function()
{
if(xmlhttp.readyState == 4 && xmlhttp.status == 200){
var det = xmlhttp.responseText ;
if (window.DOMParser)
{
//I cannot reach this line while executing.
alert("This alert is not appearing");
var parser=new DOMParser();
xmlDoc=parser.parseFromString(det,"text/xml");
var x=xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("fieldValue");
var txta =new Array();
....some code
}
}
else // Internet Explorer
{
alert("else window DOM parser for IE");
xmlDoc = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
xmlDoc.async = false;
xmlDoc.loadXML(det);
...... some code
} // end for
} //end else for Other Browser (window.DOMParser)
} //end if Readystate 4 and Status 200
else{
}//else
}//close OnReadyStatechange Function
xmlhttp.open('GET',url,true);
xmlhttp.send(null);
eleCount = eleCount + 1;
}//end Function Populate()
</script>
I made it working -- The problem arises whenever i added this line
<HTML manifest=../../demo.appcache> This code will download the files mentioned in the manifest file to the browser's application cache. When I remove this line the rest calls are working fine.

Ajax , html5, Fancybox.js

I am having problems with using Ajax and Fancybox.js photo viewer together.
I have a website set up first as web 1.0 with the standard navigation with hyperlinks.
but for html5 browsers I'm am using javascript that creates a web 2.0 experience.
The javascript first highjacks the links onclick event which makes a XMLHttpRequest that calls a php script that parses the html and sends back just the part of the html that I want to replace. I am using pushState and popState to get the back and forward buttons to function.
It is working great, it creates the Ajax effect, while persevering all the advantages of web 1.0 including SEO, because the links as far as the search engine spiders are concerned the links are just standard links to standard html pages.
The problem is that one of the pages uses Fancybox.js to show photos, it works fine when the page is accessed via the standard url, but when the html is accessed via the Ajax scripts if breaks it.
Here is code for the Ajax,
if (history.pushState) {
function changeContent(url) {
var xmlhttp;
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) { // code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
} else { // code for IE6, IE5
xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
}
xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function () {
if (xmlhttp.readyState === 4 && xmlhttp.status === 200) {
document.getElementById('content').innerHTML = xmlhttp.responseText;
}
};
xmlhttp.open("GET", "getContents.php?url=" + url, true);
xmlhttp.send();
}
$(document).ready(function() {
var elems = null,
links = null,
link = null,
i;
elems = document.getElementById('nav');
links = elems.getElementsByTagName('a');
if (links) {
for (i = 0; i < links.length; i++) {
links[i].addEventListener("click", function(e) {
url = $(this).attr("href");
var pathArray = window.location.pathname.split( '/' );
var n = pathArray.length;
changeContent(url);
history.pushState(null, null, url);
e.preventDefault();
var urlstr = window.location,
index = /index/g,
program = /program/g,
photos = /photos/g,
testimonials = /testimonials/g,
about = /about/g,
contact = /contact/g;
if (program.test(urlstr)){
changeCurrentPage('#program');
document.title = "Our Programs Kolibri Daycare";
}else if (photos.test(urlstr)){
changeCurrentPage('#photos');
document.title = "Photos Kolibri Daycare";
slideShow();
}else if (testimonials.test(urlstr)){
changeCurrentPage('#testimonials');
document.title = "Tesimonials Kolibri Daycare";
}else if (about.test(urlstr)){
changeCurrentPage('#about');
document.title = "About Kolibri Daycare";
}else if (contact.test(urlstr)){
changeCurrentPage('#contact');
document.title = "Contact Kolibri Daycare";
}else {
changeCurrentPage('#home');
document.title = "Kolibri Daycare";
}
}, false);
}
}
window.setTimeout(function() {
window.addEventListener("popstate", function(e) {
var pathArray = window.location.pathname.split( '/' );
var n = pathArray.length;
if (pathArray[n-1]){
changeContent(pathArray[n-1]);
}else {
changeContent('index.html');
}
}, false);
}, 1);
});
}
and her is the script that calls Fancybox.js,
<script type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[
$(document).ready(function() {
$("a[rel=example_group]").fancybox({
'overlayShow' : false,
'cyclic' : true,
'transitionIn' : 'elastic',
'transitionOut' : 'elastic'
});
});
//]]>
</script>
It is in the head section of the page.
When the html that has the photo links is brought in via Ajax the script that calls fancybox.js is not included. I have tried calling it in different places but nothing seems to work. Does anyone have any ideas?
You need to re-initialize fancybox on the new elements added from ajax. I'm not sure why you don't just upgrade the entire page to HTML5 and use some of the ajax functions provided by jQuery, but I think the re-initialization should be inserted after this line (not tested!):
document.getElementById('content').innerHTML = xmlhttp.responseText;
$('#content').find("a[rel=example_group]").fancybox();

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