Question

I am making ajax request to a particular server and getting the response also. I am doing cross domain request so using jsonp. Is there a way to get the server time to which i am making the request. Will it be better to write php script or doing just ajax request is good. Suppose if i make the following request :

$.ajax({
        dataType: 'jsonp',
        data: 'jsonp=date',
        jsonp: 'jsonp_callback',                
        url: 'http://www.google.com',   
        success: function (data) {                  
        }
});

How can i get the server time from this request? Please help if any suggestion. Also after getting the time if i use setInterval method to update time every second will it be a costly operation or better to make the same ajax request after a particular time to update time. I have real time data to update with the time.

Answer 1

You can’t get the server’s time if it doesn’t explicitly provide it to you.
You can read its HTTP headers, but that’s not a good thing since the headers may not provide this information every time, or their format may not be the same all the time.

Also, I don’t see the point of asking it every second.
Ask it one single time, calculate the difference between its time and yours, and here you go: you got the difference of time and you can use it wherever you want.

Keep in mind that even if you get the time, there probably will be a difference between the one you got and the server’s real time because of the network’s latency.