Question

I have a simple CGI script that would generate plain text content on demand. For example, http://1.2.3.4/hello.cgi?name=Joe would return Hello Joe!.

How can I read this into a string in Javascript?

name     = "Joe";
url      = "http://1.2.3.4/hello.cgi?name=" + name;
greeting = loadThis(url);

I’m new to Javascript, so even naive approach (i.e. no need to URL escape…) will be helpful for me 🙂

Answer 1

Based on this FAQ on JavaScriper.net, I have found solution that works for me. However, the called script must be on the same machine as the caller, otherwise I get security errors from browsers.

Apparently this is what @Makkes mentioned. However, I’m perfectly happy with having the hello.cgi on the same machine for now.

Here is the code:

function loadThis(localuri) {
    var oRequest = new XMLHttpRequest();

    var sURL = 'http://'
        + self.location.hostname
        + localuri;

    oRequest.open('GET',sURL,false);
    oRequest.setRequestHeader('User-Agent',navigator.userAgent);
    oRequest.send(null);

    if (oRequest.status==200) return(oRequest.responseText);
    else alert('Error executing XMLHttpRequest call!');
}

name        = "Joe";
localuri    = "/hello.cgi?name=" + name;
greeting    = loadThis(localuri);

(Of course, this would not handle names with spaces or special characters correctly, but that’s another story.)