What is AJAX ?

• Asynchronous Javascript and XML.

• Not a stand-alone language or technology.
• It is a technique that combines a set of
known technologies in order to create faster
and more user friendly web pages.
• It is a client side technology.
• Ajax isn’t a technology. It’s really several
technologies, each flourishing in its own right,
coming together in powerful new ways. Ajax
incorporates:
• standards-based presentation using XHTML and
CSS;
• dynamic display and interaction using the
Document Object Model;
• data interchange and manipulation using
XML and XSLT;
• asynchronous data retrieval using
XMLHttpRequest;
• and JavaScript binding everything together.
• Who’s Using Ajax
• Google is making a huge investment in developing
the Ajax approach. All of the major products
Google has introduced over the last year — Orkut,
Gmail, the latest beta version of Google Groups,
Google Suggest, and Google Maps — are Ajax
applications. (For more on the technical nuts and
bolts of these Ajax implementations, check out
these excellent analyses of Gmail, Google Suggest
, and Google Maps.) Others are following suit:
many of the features that people love in Flickr
depend on Ajax, and Amazon’s A9.com search
engine applies similar techniques.
 Purpose of AJAX
• Prevents unnecessary reloading of a page.
• When we submit a form, although most of the
page remains the same, whole page is reloaded
from the server.
• This causes very long waiting times and waste of
bandwidth.
• AJAX aims at loading only the necessary
innformation, and making only the necessary
changes on the current page without reloading the
whole page.
 Technologies Used
• AJAX uses:
– Javascript (for altering the page)
– XML (for information exchange)
– ASP or JSP (server side)
 Simple Processing
• AJAX is based on Javascript, and the main
functionality is to access the web server inside the
Javascript code.
• We access to the server using special objects; we
send data and retrieve data.
• When user initiates an event, a javascript function
is called which accesses server using the objects.
• The received information is shown to the user by
means of the Javascript’s functions.
 Example
• We want to input data into a textbox.
• We want the textbox to have intellisense
property; guess entries according to input.
• http://www.w3schools.com/ajax/ajax_example.asp
• Only the ‘span’ part of the html code is changed.
 Data Exchange in AJAX
• In AJAX:
 Example(2)
• Another example:
http://www.w3schools.com/ajax/ajax_database.asp
• Therefore, by using AJAX, unnecessary
exchange of data is prevented, web pages
become:
– More interactive
– Faster
– More user friendly
 History of AJAX
• Starts with web pages
• Static web pages
– Static html page is loaded
– No interaction with user
• Dynamic web pages
– Html page is generated dynamically
– Interaction with user
– Becomes slower as functionality increases
– Speed becomes untolerable, so AJAX has been
born
 Alternative Technologies
• Not a technology, but a combination of
technologies.
• Technologies with similar tasks:
URLConnection, ASP and JSP
• Other technologies returns whole page and
client loads it.
• Only necessary data is returned and that
part is updated
 Structure of System
• Client/Server architecture
• XMLHTTP object is used to make request
and get response in Client side
• Request can be done via “GET” or “POST”
methods
– “GET”: parameters are attached to the url used
to connect.
– “POST”: parameters are sent as parameters to a
function
• Not many changes in Server side
– Response is a combination of xml tags
 C/S Processes
• Most of the time client requires two files
– Html page: handles GUI and calls a function of
JavaScript.
– JavaScript: handles the business logic of the
system
• In JavaScript, a request is sent to client and
response is taken from server via XMLHTTP
object
• Response of server should be returned in xml
file structure
 Examination of Sample

• General process will be explained on an

example at http://www.w3schools.com/ajax/ajax_database.asp.
• In this example, one html page and one
JavaSocket reside in Client side of the
system while an ASP page resides in Server
sides.
 Html Code of Example
<html><head>
<script src="selectcustomer.js">
</script></head><body>
<form> Select a Customer:
<select name="customers" onchange="showCustomer(this.value)">
<option value="ALFKI">Alfreds Futterkiste
<option value="NORTS ">North/South
<option value="WOLZA">Wolski Zajazd
</select></form><p>
<div id="txtHint"><b>Customer info will be listed here.</b></div>
</p></body></html>
 JavaScript of Example
function showCustomer(str) {
var url="getcustomer.asp?sid=" + Math.random() + "&q=" + str
xmlHttp=GetXmlHttpObject(stateChanged)
xmlHttp.open("GET", url , true)
xmlHttp.send(null)
}
function stateChanged() {
if (xmlHttp.readyState==4 || xmlHttp.readyState=="complete"){
document.getElementById("txtHint").innerHTML = \
xmlHttp.responseText
}
}
 ASP Code of Example
sql="SELECT * FROM CUSTOMERS WHERE CUSTOMERID="
sql=sql & request.querystring("q")
............ Open Connection to the DB
rs.Open sql, conn

response.write("<table>")
do until rs.EOF
for each x in rs.Fields
response.write("<tr><td><b>" & x.name & "</b></td>")
response.write("<td> & x.value & "</td></tr>")
next
rs.MoveNext
loop
response.write("</table>")
 XMLHTTP Object
• The object that is used to connect to the
remote server is called XMLHTTP.
• It resembles the Java’s URL object that is
used to access a specific URL and get the
contents.
 Creating the object
• For IE 5.5:
objXmlHttp=new ActiveXObject(“Microsoft.XMLHTTP”)
• For Mozilla:
objXmlHttp=new XMLHttpRequest()
 Sending information
• After creating the object, we can send information to the
web server and get the answer using this object’s
functions:
• GET METHOD: xmlhttp.open(“GET”, url, true)
xmlhttp.send()
• POST METHOD: xmlhttp.open("POST", url, true)
xmlhttp.send(“date=11-11-2006&name=Ali")

• Third argument tells that data will be processes asynchronously. When

server responds, the “OnReadyStateChange” event handler will be
called.
 Retrieving information
• We get the returned value with the property
“xmlHttp.responseText”.
 Pros/Cons
• Advantages:
– Independent of server technology.
– Apart from obtaining the XMLHTTP object, all processing is same
for all browser types, because Javascript is used.
– Permits the development of faster and more interactive web
applications.
• Disadvantages:
– The back button problem. People think that when they press back
button, they will return to the last change they made, but in AJAX
this doesn not hold.
– Possible network latency problems. People should be given
feedback about the processing.
– Does not run on all browsers.