Other JavaScript Libraries - Beginning JavaScript - page 525

using ajax support
Unfortunately, Prototype's Ajax support isn't as straightforward as jQuery's. Prototype's Ajax
functionality centers on its Ajax object, which contains a variety of methods you can use to make
Ajax calls. This object is much like the jQuery object in that you do not create an instance of Ajax ;
you use the methods made available by the object itself.

At the heart of the Ajax object is the Ajax.Request() constructor. It accepts two arguments: the
URL and an object containing a set of options that the Ajax object uses when making a request. The
options object can contain a variety of option properties to alter the behavior of Ajax.Request() .
The following table describes just a few of them.

option desCription

Determines whether or not the XMLHttpRequest object makes the request in
asynchronous mode. The default is true .

asynchronous

The HTTP method used for the request. The default is "post" . "get" is another
valid value.

method

A callback function invoked when the request completes successfully

onSuccess

A callback function invoked when the request completes, but results in an error
status code

onFailure

Either a string containing the parameters to send with the request, or an object
containing the parameters and their values

parameters

Note For a complete list of options, visit the Prototype documentation at
http://prototypejs.org/doc/latest/ajax/ .

Making a request with Prototype looks something like the following code:

function requestSuccess(transport) {
alert(transport.responseText);
}
function requestFailed(transport) {
alert("An error occurred! HTTP status code is " + transport.status);
}
var options = {
method: "get",
onSuccess: requestSuccess,
onFailure: requestFailed
};
new Ajax.Request("someTextFile.txt", options);