Web Science/Part1: Foundations of the web/Dynamic Web Content/Ajax and the XMLHttpRequest class

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Ajax and the XMLHttpRequest class

Learning goals

  1. be aware of JavaScript APIs
  2. know some of the standard JavaScript libraries
  3. be able to understand the concept of Ajax requests.

Video

Script

index.html

<html>
<head><title>Registration Form</title></head>
<body>
<script>
	function validator(){
		var name = document.getElementById("userinput").value;
		if( name.length<3){
			document.getElementById("warning").innerHTML = "User name is too short. Please enter at least 3 characters.";
		}
		else {
			if (window.XMLHttpRequest) { // code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
				var ajax = new XMLHttpRequest();
			}
			else { // code for IE6, IE5
				var ajax = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
			}
			ajax.open('GET', 'servlet?name='+name, true);
			ajax.onreadystatechange = function(){
				if (ajax.readyState == 4 && ajax.status == 200){
					document.getElementById("warning").innerHTML = ajax.responseText;
				}
			};
			ajax.send();
		}
	}
</script>
<h1>Registration Form for the Web Science MOOC</h1>

<form action="servlet" method="POST">
<label for="userinput">Enter User:</label>
<input name="username" id="userinput" type ="text" onchange="validator()"/><span id="warning" style="color:red"></span>
<br>
<label for="emailinput">Enter email</label>
<input name="email" id="emailinput" type ="text" />
<br>
<input name="submit" id="submitbutton" type="submit" value="register"/>
</form>

</body>
</html>

Register.java

import java.io.IOException;
import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.SQLException;
import java.sql.Statement;

import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server;
import org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext;

public class Register extends HttpServlet {

	private Connection connect = null;
	private Statement statement = null;
	private ResultSet resultSet = null;

	public Register() {
		try {
			Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");
			// Setup the connection with the DB
			connect = DriverManager
					.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://localhost/mooc?"
							+ "user=mooc&password=studywebscience");

			// Statements allow to issue SQL queries to the database
			statement = connect.createStatement();
			// Result set get the result of the SQL query
		} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
			// TODO Auto-generated catch block
			e.printStackTrace();
		} catch (SQLException e) {
			// TODO Auto-generated catch block
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
	}

	protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp)
			throws ServletException, IOException {
		String name = req.getParameter("name");
		
		String sql = "select * from mooc.users where name like '"+name+"'";
		
		try {
			resultSet = statement.executeQuery(sql);
			
			boolean flag = false;
			while (resultSet.next()){
				String entryName = resultSet.getString("name");
				String entryEmail = resultSet.getString("email");
				
				resp.getWriter().write(entryName + " has been taken by someone with the followint email: " + entryEmail);
				flag = true;
			}
			if (flag)
				return ; 
			
		} catch (SQLException e) {
			// TODO Auto-generated catch block
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
		
		
		resp.getWriter().write("Your name is available;");
	}

	protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp)
			throws ServletException, IOException {
		String sql = "insert into mooc.users values(default, '"
				+ req.getParameter("username") + "', '"
				+ req.getParameter("email") + "')";

		resp.setContentType("text/html");
		
		try {
			statement.execute(sql);
			resp.getWriter().write(
					"received username:<b>" + req.getParameter("username")
							+ "</b>, with email: <em>"
							+ req.getParameter("email") + "</em>");
		} catch (SQLException e) {
			// TODO Auto-generated catch block
			e.printStackTrace();
		}

	}

	public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
		Server server = new Server(8080);

		WebAppContext context = new WebAppContext();
		context.setDescriptor("WEB-INF/web.xml");
		context.setResourceBase("");
		context.setContextPath("");
		context.setParentLoaderPriority(true);

		server.setHandler(context);

		server.start();
		server.join();
	}
}
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app>
  <servlet>
    <servlet-name>Register</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>Register</servlet-class>
  </servlet>

  <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>Register</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/servlet</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

Quiz

1 What is true about using JavaScript for issuing an HTTP request from some webpage?

Usually only HTTP requests to the domain from which the webpage that contains the calling JavaScript was downloaded are possible
It is possible to make HTTP requests to other servers if they run on port 433
It is possible to make HTTP requests to other servers if they have a cross origin resource sharing policy
It is possible if the domain from which the webpage that contains the calling JavaScript was downloaded is white listed in the Access-Origin Header field of the server response.
If not allowed the browser will prevent JavaScript from making the HTTP request.
the repsonse has to be in JSON (JavaScript object notation)

2 Why is JavaScript useful for the World Wide Web?

It enables more interactive websites
It can take loads of traffic from the web server or the web server's backend
It can help websites to better communicate with search engines and provide metadata like RDFa
Without JavaScript, the structure of web content could not be completely seperated from layout and formatting
It can help to easily make asynchronous HTTP requests to a web server

3 What are the advantages of JavaScript libraries?

They provide an API that will work on almost any browser
They make JavaScript more powerful

4 Which of the following are JavaScript libraries

jQuery
PHP
Java
mootools
Prototype
Netscape


Discussion