Facebook - assign username to a variable by calling FB.Facebook.apiClient.users_getInfo()

Question

I am developing a facebook app and I seem to have got stuck on an issue.

I am trying to assign the username to a variable by calling the below code, but the variable is returning null.

var current_user ='';
var arUser = FB.Connect.get_loggedInUser();
FB.Facebook.apiClient.users_getInfo(arUser, ["name"], 
  function (user, exec) 
  { //alert(user[0].name); - this works!!
  current_user = user[0].name; 
});

alert(current_user); // this returns null :(

I get a value if I do an alert(user[0].name) within the function. I get a feeling that I need to wait for the response from execution of users_getInfo() before using the current_user variable, but not sure how..

Help much appreciated.

Answer 1

you should process the data in the callback function, due to this call is asynchronous.

Answer 2

Your alert is being called before the AJAX call returns. Just wrap code that uses the current_user variable in a separate function, and invoke that function only from the users_getInfo success handler.

Another option would be to have a timer that polls for the variable, but I see no reason to do such a thing.