[thelist] XML fragment into DOM
Roderick A. Anderson
raanders at mailporter.net
Thu Jul 14 00:32:22 CDT 2005
Jeff Howden wrote:
> Please tell me that you didn't try to write the script for doing the
> XMLHTTPRequest yourself. I say this because there are several very good
> libraries out there that already abstract the browser differences for you.
If you insist I'll admit I didn't. :-) I grabbed the code from an
article on XML.com and saw several variations of it at other sites.
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>>1. A full XHTML document that is opened in another
>> window,
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>
> Doable, but why not just request the XHTML from the server directly rather
> than use XHR and populate a popup?
Strange situation in that I need to make the call from within a form
without submitting the form or triggering the javascript validation. It
works on one site but not the other. As I think I've mentioned before I
get very _pretty_ pages with tons of presentation markup and using
tables for layout that I have to stuff forms into. So even when I think
I'm using the same html, css and javascript it may not be so.
>>2. a XML fragment that ( hopefully ) could be stuck
>> right into the document at the correct place,
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>
> This is one of the more common uses.
Feeling better all the time!
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>>3. an Object or the code to create the object and do an
>> eval on that (?), and lastly
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>
> I would recommend *against* this approach. Wherever possible, avoid eval()
> like the plague. There's a reason it sounds so similar to the word evil.
Gotcha! I remember seeing an article today that mentioned this. eval
is/can be a performance pig.
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>>4. some custom data format.
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>
> Most often XHR is used to run a "function" on a server, taking the result of
> that function and doing something with it in the document making the XHR.
> Most often, the datatypes returned by the server are booleans, integers,
> floats, and strings. Once in a while you'll have the need for something
> more complex like an array or complex object. Once you depart from the
> simple data types though, the issues become far more complex to work out, no
> pun intended.
This ties back to my need to modify/add-to a selection list and another
where I return the username being available or some optional values. (
Saw an article on this today on ALA.
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>>My preference is some ( builtin/loadable? ) function to
>>turn an xml fragment into part of the DOM.
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>
> If the fragment contains nothing but standard XHTML, inserting that fragment
> is as easy as finding the element you wish to make the parent of the
> fragment and stuffing it into that element using its innerHTML property.
Ok I saw this ( innerHTML ) once or twice today but never read a good
explanation of what it does and how to use. I'll pull the
xmlHTTPRequest references I found and get more familiar.
> Purists will gag reading that and suggest that you loop over the structure
> of the fragment inserting the various pieces using calls to the
> createElement() and appendChild() methods of the document object.
Former COBOL/FORTRAN/Pascal programmers I'm sure. I've done most of my
work for the last 8 years or so in perl. If there is a fast way to do
it and it is understandable/maintainable I use it.
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>>Suggestions or even better pointers ( my searches --
>>five pages into a google search ) didn't help.
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>
>
> Neuromancer is a *very* robust XHR library.
Humm. I didn't run across this one. Of course I wasn't searching for
*libraries* either. I did but a copy of "The Browser Book" following a
link from your site which distracted me until I read your message from
looking at your site. Interesting code and articles.
BTW list, I go into so much detail and ramble on in the hopes of helping
someone later on that is searching the list archives. I have picked up
quite a bit of information from rambling threads in lists myself.
Thanks Jeff for the insights and recommendations.
Rod
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