May 08, 2021 AJAX
AJAX is used to create more dynamic applications.
ASP: Active Server Pages is a server-side scripting environment developed by Microsoft that can be used to create dynamic interactive web pages and build powerful web applications.
PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, a hypertext preprocessor, is a common open source scripting language. Grammar absorbs the characteristics of C language, Java and Perl, is easy to learn, widely used, mainly applicable to the field of Web development.
This section will introduce you to several ASP/PHP instances related to AJAX.
The following example shows you how a Web page communicates with a web server when a user types a character in an input box: Type a letter (A - Z) in the input box below:
The function
showHint()
is executed when the user types characters in the input box above.
The function is triggered
onkeyup
event:
function showHint(str)
{
var xmlhttp;
if (str.length==0)
{
document.getElementById("txtHint").innerHTML="";
return;
}
if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
{// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
}
else
{// code for IE6, IE5
xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
}
xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function()
{
if (xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200)
{
document.getElementById("txtHint").innerHTML=xmlhttp.responseText;
}
}
xmlhttp.open("GET","gethint.html?q="+str,true);
xmlhttp.send();
}
Source code parsing:
If the input box is empty (str.length,0), the function
txtHint
and exits the function.
If the input box is not empty,
showHint()
performs the following tasks:
q
(with input box)
The server page called by JavaScript above is an ASP file named "gethint .asp."
Let's create two versions of the server file, one written in ASP and the other in PHP.
The source code .asp "gethint" checks an array of names and returns the name to the browser:
<%
response.expires=-1
dim a(30)
'Fill up array with names
a(1)="Anna"
a(2)="Brittany"
a(3)="Cinderella"
a(4)="Diana"
a(5)="Eva"
a(6)="Fiona"
a(7)="Gunda"
a(8)="Hege"
a(9)="Inga"
a(10)="Johanna"
a(11)="Kitty"
a(12)="Linda"
a(13)="Nina"
a(14)="Ophelia"
a(15)="Petunia"
a(16)="Amanda"
a(17)="Raquel"
a(18)="Cindy"
a(19)="Doris"
a(20)="Eve"
a(21)="Evita"
a(22)="Sunniva"
a(23)="Tove"
a(24)="Unni"
a(25)="Violet"
a(26)="Liza"
a(27)="Elizabeth"
a(28)="Ellen"
a(29)="Wenche"
a(30)="Vicky"
'get the q parameter from URL
q=ucase(request.querystring("q"))
'lookup all hints from array if length of q>0
if len(q)>0 then
hint=""
for i=1 to 30
if q=ucase(mid(a(i),1,len(q))) then
if hint="" then
hint=a(i)
else
hint=hint & " , " & a(i)
end if
end if
next
end if
'Output "no suggestion" if no hint were found
'or output the correct values
if hint="" then
response.write("no suggestion")
else
response.write(hint)
end if
%>
The following code is written in PHP, which is the same as the ASP code above.
<?php
// Fill up array with names
$a[]="Anna";
$a[]="Brittany";
$a[]="Cinderella";
$a[]="Diana";
$a[]="Eva";
$a[]="Fiona";
$a[]="Gunda";
$a[]="Hege";
$a[]="Inga";
$a[]="Johanna";
$a[]="Kitty";
$a[]="Linda";
$a[]="Nina";
$a[]="Ophelia";
$a[]="Petunia";
$a[]="Amanda";
$a[]="Raquel";
$a[]="Cindy";
$a[]="Doris";
$a[]="Eve";
$a[]="Evita";
$a[]="Sunniva";
$a[]="Tove";
$a[]="Unni";
$a[]="Violet";
$a[]="Liza";
$a[]="Elizabeth";
$a[]="Ellen";
$a[]="Wenche";
$a[]="Vicky";
//get the q parameter from URL
$q=$_GET["q"];
//lookup all hints from array if length of q>0
if (strlen($q) > 0)
{
$hint="";
for($i=0; $i<count($a); $i++)
{
if (strtolower($q)==strtolower(substr($a[$i],0,strlen($q))))
{
if ($hint=="")
{
$hint=$a[$i];
}
else
{
$hint=$hint." , ".$a[$i];
}
}
}
}
// Set output to "no suggestion" if no hint were found
// or to the correct values
if ($hint == "")
{
$response="no suggestion";
}
else
{
$response=$hint;
}
//output the response
echo $response;
?>
In the next section, we'll cover the AJAX database!