Question

Anyone know if it is possible to make the PeriodicalUpdater pass the data it received to a function I assign to update the desired field?

I want to process the data I receive and then have the PeriodicalUpdater function update the field.

Answer 1

Yes, you can pass it an onsuccess callback, just like you do for a any other AjaxRequest.

new Ajax.PeriodicalUpdater('container', '/someurl', {
  method: 'get', 
  frequency: 3, 
  decay: 2;
  onsuccess: function(response){
     myCustomFunction(response.responseText);
  }
});

function myCustomFunction(data){
  /* do something */
}

See Ajax.PeriodicalUpdater and Ajax Options.