How to make all AJAX calls sequential?

Question

I use jQuery. And I don't want parallel AJAX calls on my application, each call must wait the previous before starting. How to implement it? There is any helper?

UPDATE If there is any synchronous version of the XMLHttpRequest or jQuery.post I would like to know. But sequential != synchronous, and I would like an asynchronous and sequential solution.

Answer 1

Synchronous calls aren't necessarily slower, if you have an app where AJAX calls open, posts to, then closes a socket, multiple calls to the socket don't make sense as some sockets can only handle a single connection, in which case, queuing data so its only sent when the previous AJAX call has completed means much higher data throughput.

Answer 2

And seems now you have a solution for this:

http://api.jquery.com/category/deferred-object/

or

http://www.slideshare.net/furf/making-ajax-sexy-jsconf-2010?from=ss_embed

Answer 3

There's a much better way to do this than using synchronous ajax calls. Jquery ajax returns a deferred so you can just use pipe chaining to make sure that each ajax call finishes before the next runs. Here's a working example with a more in depth example you can play with on jsfiddle.

// How to force async functions to execute sequentially 
// by using deferred pipe chaining.

// The master deferred.
var dfd = $.Deferred(),  // Master deferred
    dfdNext = dfd; // Next deferred in the chain
    x = 0, // Loop index
    values = [], 

    // Simulates $.ajax, but with predictable behaviour.
    // You only need to understand that higher 'value' param 
    // will finish earlier.
    simulateAjax = function (value) {
        var dfdAjax = $.Deferred();

        setTimeout(
            function () {
                dfdAjax.resolve(value);
            },
            1000 - (value * 100)
        );

        return dfdAjax.promise();
    },

    // This would be a user function that makes an ajax request.
    // In normal code you'd be using $.ajax instead of simulateAjax.
    requestAjax = function (value) {
        return simulateAjax(value);
    };

// Start the pipe chain.  You should be able to do 
// this anywhere in the program, even
// at the end,and it should still give the same results.
dfd.resolve();

// Deferred pipe chaining.
// What you want to note here is that an new 
// ajax call will not start until the previous
// ajax call is completely finished.
for (x = 1; x <= 4; x++) {

    values.push(x);

    dfdNext = dfdNext.pipe(function () {
        var value = values.shift();
        return requestAjax(value).
            done(function(response) {
                // Process the response here.

            });

    });

}

Some people have commented they have no clue what the code does. In order to understand it, you first need to understand javascript promises. I am pretty sure promises are soon to be a native javascript language feature, so that should give you a good incentive to learn.

Answer 4

Look at this: http://docs.jquery.com/Ajax/jQuery.ajax (click on the "options" tab).

But remember a synchronous call will freeze the page until the response is received, so it can't be used in a production site, because users will get mad if for any reason they have to wait 30 seconds with their browser frozen.

EDIT: ok, with your update it's clearer what you want to achieve ;)

So, your code may look like this:

    $.getJSON("http://example.com/jsoncall", function(data) {
        process(data);
        $.getJSON("http://example.com/jsoncall2", function (data) {
            processAgain(data);
            $.getJSON("http://example.com/anotherjsoncall", function(data) {
                processAgainAndAgain(data);
            });
        });
    });

This way, the second call will only be issued when the response to the first call has been received and processed, and the third call will only be issued when the response to the second call has been received and processed. This code is for getJSON but it can be adapted to $.ajax.

Answer 5

The best way you could do this is by chaining callbacks as Nosredna said. I wouldn't recommend using synchronous XMLHttpRequest as they lock your entire application.

There aren't much helper for this as far as I know, but you could do something resembling a callback FIFO.

Answer 6

You have two choices that I can think of. One is to chain them through callbacks. The other is to make the calls synchronous rather than async.

Is there a reason you want them sequential? That will slow things down.

To make the call synchronous, you'll set the async option in the Ajax call to false. See the documentation at http://docs.jquery.com/Ajax/jQuery.ajax#options (click options tab to see them).