Question

how do i make data overwrite results variable ?

var ajax = {
    get : {
        venues : function(search){
            var results = "@";
            $.getJSON("http://x.com/some.php?term="+search+"&callback=?",function(data){ results = data; });
            return results;
        }
    }
};

Answer 1

data is overwriting results, just after results has been returned.

You can use the ajax function instead of getJSON, since getJSON is just shorthand for

$.ajax({
  url: url,
  dataType: 'json',
  data: data,
  success: callback
});

and then also set async to false, so that the call will block.

However, in your case this won’t work, because JSONP requests (with "?callback=?") cannot be synchronous.

The other (better) option is to have whatever code is dependent on the results return value get called by the success callback.

So, instead of something like this:

var results = ajax.get.venues('search');
$('#results').html(translateResults(results));

Maybe something like this:

ajax.get.venues('search', function (results) {
    $('#results').html(translateResults(results));
});

venues = function (search, callback) {
    $.getJSON("http://x.com/some.php?term="+search+"&callback=?",
              function(data){
                  callback(data); 
              });
};