How does an XMLHttpRequest response get routed to the right browser-callback?

Question

Hello. I have made webpage that uses Ajax to update some values without reloading the page. I am using an XMLHttpRequest object to send a POST request, and I assign a callback function that gets called when the response arrives, and it works just fine.

But... how in the world does the browser know that some data coming from some ip:port should be sent to this particular callback function? I mean, in a worst case scenario, if I have Firefox and IE making some POST requests at roughly the same time from the same server, and even making subsequent POST requests before the responses arrive to the previous ones, how does the data coming in gets routed to the right callback functions ??

Answer 1

Each request has its own connection. Means that if you have single connection, of course you will have single response, and this response will be in your callback.

Answer 2

The general idea is that your browser opens a new connection entirely, makes a request to the server and waits for a response. This is all in one connection which is managed by the browser via a JavaScript API. The connection is not severed and then picked up again when the browser pushes something down, so the browser, having originated the request, knows what to do when the request finishes.

What truly makes things Asynchronous, is that these connections can happen separately in the background, which allows multiple requests to go out and return, while waiting for responses. This gives you the nice AJAX effect that appears to be the server returning something at a later time.

Answer 3

Each HTTP request made is on a seperate TCP connection. The browser simply waits for data to come back on that connection then invokes your callback function.

At a lower level, the TCP implementation on your OS will keep track of which packets belong to each socket (i.e. connection) by using a different "source port" for each one. There will be some lookup table mapping source ports to open sockets.

It is worth noting that the number of simultaneous connections a browser makes to any one server is limited (typically to 2). This was sensible back in the old days when pages reloaded to send and recieve data, but in these enlightened days of AJAX it is a real nuisance. See the page for an interesting discussion of the problem.