Working with an api and I need to one of the first responses alongside with the second response in order to serve up a new page. The problem I'm facing is that my variable $x is always set to whatever the last # is in the loop, ie 103 in this specific case. Here is my code:
$.ajax({
dataType: 'text',
type: 'post',
url: 'getAllMessages.php',
success: function(responseData) {
var newString = responseData;
var newerString = newString.substring(0, newString.length - 1);
$newObject = jQuery.parseJSON(newerString);
//console.log($newObject);
for($x = 0; $x < $newObject.messages.length; $x++){
$.ajax({
data: {clientFolderId: $newObject.messages[$x].clientFolderId, messageId: $newObject.messages[$x].messageId},
dataType: 'text',
type: 'post',
url: 'testapi.php',
success: function(responseData2){
//alert($x);
var newString2 = responseData2;
var newerString2 = newString2.substring(0, newString2.length - 1);
$newObject2 = jQuery.parseJSON(newerString2);
if($newObject2.statistics.delivered > 1000){
console.log($newObject.messages[$x]);
console.log($newObject2);
}
},
error: function(responseData2){
alert('failure in testapi.php');
}
});
}
},
error: function(responseData) {
alert('failure in getAllMessages.php');
}
});
My intuition says nesting the Ajax call inside another functional scope (correction thanks to Matt) will resolve the unexpected behavior. I got burned by this already Object creation in loop broken; unrolled works
Also here, example #5: http://www.javascriptkit.com/javatutors/closures2.shtml
Following the pattern given by Engineer,
for($x = 0; $x < $newObject.messages.length; $x++){
(function($x) {
$.ajax({
data: {clientFolderId: $newObject.messages[$x].clientFolderId, messageId: $newObject.messages[$x].messageId},
dataType: 'text',
type: 'post',
url: 'testapi.php',
success: function(responseData2){
alert($x);
var newString2 = responseData2;
var newerString2 = newString2.substring(0, newString2.length - 1);
$newObject2 = jQuery.parseJSON(newerString2);
if($newObject2.statistics.delivered > 1000){
console.log($newObject.messages[1]);
console.log($newObject2);
}
},
error: function(responseData2){
alert('failure in testapi.php');
}
});
})($x);
}
What you're experiencing is closure. When the loop spins round, the value for $x
is updated. However, when the ajax function comes to grab it - it's using a reference. So as you find, you end up with the last value.
Try and think more functional? What are you trying to do? Let's say you're trying to postMessage
- wrap that in a function and pass in the message.
Your code will become easier to read, and you won't get your variables mangled.
I was about to throw out some code, but noticed something I wanted to clarify - you're using the index in both loops to get a single message from a messages array, yet the POST to testapi.php
seems to be working on a single message? What kind of response is expected from that?
Update: Created jsFiddle to Demo Problem
Here you go here's some code to help you out.
function correctOutputPlox(id) {
setTimeout(function() {
$("#output").append("<li>" + id + "</li>");
}, 500);
}
function runNicely() {
// same loop...
for (var x = 0; x < 10; x++) {
// but rather than use 'x' (which is going to change, we pass it's value into a function which doesn't have access to the original 'x' since it's in a different lexical scope.
correctOutputPlox(x);
}
}
function showProblem() {
for (var x = 0; x < 10; x++) {
setTimeout(function() {
$("#output").append("<li>" + x + "</li>");
}, 500);
}
}
showProblem();
runNicely();