JavaScript XMLHttpRequest

XMLHttpRequest is a JavaScript object type that can be used to retrieve a resource via a URL. Despite the Http in the name of the type, an XMLHttpRequest object can be used to retrieve resources via various protocols including the

• http,
• ftp, and
• file protocols.

First, create an instance of XMLHttpRequest:

var req = new XMLHttpRequest();

Add any necessary event listeners to the request:

req.addEventListener("load", function(ev){alert("status=" + req.status);});
req.addEventListener("error", function(ev){alert("handle error");});

• If you attempt to access status or statusText when readyState is not DONE you will get an INVALID_STATE_ERR DOM Exception 11 error. In any event other than load or error, which are only called when readystate is DONE, be sure to do if (req.readyState == 4) before checking req.state or req.readyState.
• If the destination site is a different domain than the origin, you need to add headers at the destination site to avoid errors such as XMLHttpRequest cannot load ... with Origin http://www.origin.com is not allowed by Access-Control-Allow-Origin or Request header field Content-Type is not allowed by Access-Control-Allow-Headers.
• In addition, when the destination is different from the origin, the only status that is returned is 200 OK; otherwise the req.status is zero, even when an HTTP error such as 404 Not Found has occurred.

To send a GET request:

var url = "http://www.ExampleOnly.com/demo/env.php?query&param=value";
req.open("GET", url, true);
req.send(null);

• In the third parameter of req.open, specify true for an asynchronous request or false for a synchronous request

To send a POST request:

var url = "http://www.ExampleOnly.com/demo/env.php;
req.open("POST", url, true);
var formData = new FormData();
formData.append("param", "value");
req.send(formData);

• In the third parameter of req.open, specify true for an asynchronous request or false for a synchronous request