January 29, 2002 - Waiting for XML Loading | WebReference

January 29, 2002 - Waiting for XML Loading

Yehuda Shiran January 29, 2002
Waiting for XML Loading
Tips: January 2002

Yehuda Shiran, Ph.D.
Doc JavaScript

By default, XML loading is done asynchronously. When you start loading a file, the browser does not wait for the loading to complete but rather continues interpreting the script. Sometimes, this is undesirable; For example, when the first thing you want to do in the script is work on the XML object, but the XML object is not ready yet. Let's see an example:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--
function load2() {
  var xmldoc;
  xmldoc = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.DOMDocument.3.0");
  xmldoc.load("mydvd.xml");
  alert(xmldoc.xml);
}
// -->
</SCRIPT>
Run it now. You'll get an empty alert box, because the object is not loaded yet. Let's add an assignment to the async property:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--
function load1() {
  var xmldoc;
  xmldoc = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.DOMDocument.3.0");
  xmldoc.preserveWhiteSpace = true;
  xmldoc.async = false;
  xmldoc.load("mydvd.xml");
  alert(xmldoc.xml);
}
// -->
</SCRIPT>
Run it now. See the whole XML document displayed.