Question

I currently have the following Javascript, and I am not sure what I should put in for the commented area to check if the get returned any HTML?

$('#load-more').click(function() {
  $.get('/load/friend/2'/, function(data) {

    // If there is HTML returned, then $('#load-friend').append(data)
    // Else $('#load-global').append(data)

   });
});

The get queries /load/friend/2, which returns an HttpResponse object in Django that was rendered with render_to_response(template, context, RequestContext(request)).

The Django template looks like the following:

{% for review in reviews %}
  // Code
{% endfor %}

So when $.get retrieves /load/friend/2 and reviews = [], I believe it should return an empty HTML document?

Answer 1

In the Django controller, if reviews is empty, return a http status code instead of the view template:

if not reviews:
    # 204 = "no content"
    return HttpResponse(status=204)

In the JavaScript, use jQuery’s general AJAX function to define the callbacks:

$('#load-more').click(function() {
    $.ajax({
        url: '/load/friend/2',
        type: 'GET',
        dataType: 'HTML',
        success: function (data, textStatus, jqXHR) {
            $('#load-friend').append(data);
        },
        statusCode: {
            204: function () {
                $('#load-global').append('<p>No reviews found.</p>');
            }
        }
    });
});