Returning variable from onreadystatechange

Question

I am trying to return a variable from onreadystatechange and seem to be having trouble with scope. Even if I set a global variable, when trying to retrieve my variable after the fact, its undefined. Not quite sure what I am doing wrong. I haven't done too much work with Javascript in the past 3 years.

var lat;
var lon;

 window.onload = function dosomething(){

  var myRequst = new XMLHttpRequest();

  var url = "http://www.instamapper.com/api?action=getPositions&key=584014439054448247";

  myRequst.open('get', url);

  myRequst.onreadystatechange = function(){

  if ((myRequst.readyState == 4) && (myRequst.status == 200)){

  //alert(myRequst.responseText);

   var data = myRequst.responseText;
   collected=data.split(",");   //parses the data delimited by comma and put data into array

lat = collected[4];
lon = collected[5];

document.write("latitude "+lat+"<BR>\n");
document.write("latitude "+lon+"<BR>\n");

  }

  }

  myRequst.send(null);


 }

document.write(lat);

Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

You have to use a callback function which will handle the data. Remember AJAX stands for Asynchronous(JAX). So if after your onreadystatechange handling the value is not yet available is because the request did not complete at that moment.

myRequest.onreadystatechange = function() {
  if(myRequest.readyState == 4 && myRequest.status == 200) {
    (function(data) {
      // do something with the response in the variable data
    })(myRequest.responseText);
  }
}

Edit: also you can follow the request in the net/console tab of firebug to see exactly if an error has occured

Answer 2

Is the only way of returning more than one item by using an object? Like such?

 myRequest.onreadystatechange = function() {
 if(myRequest.readyState == 4 && myRequest.status == 200) {

  var obj;
  obj.latitude = collected[4];
  obj.longitude = collected[5];
  getdata(obj);
}
 }



function getdata(obj)
{
lat = obj.latitude;
lon = obj.longitude;
document.write(lon);
document.write(lat);
}