Question

I need to return the data from an nested ajax call but also need the ajax call to stay asynchronous.

I found some related questions but can’t get it to work in the situation below. I assume returnData is being returned before the ajax call is done, but I can’t find an solution.

function makeRequest(command, postData){

    var returnData;

    $.ajax({

        url: 'call.php?command='+command,
        data: postData,
        type: 'POST'

    }).done(function(data){
        returnData = data;
    });

    return returnData;
}

Answer 1

Yes since this call is async returnData is returned immediately. If you need to use returndata pass it to a function in the callback

function makeRequest(command, postData, functionToCallAfterAjax){

    var returnData;

    $.ajax({

        url: 'call.php?command='+command,
        data: postData,
        type: 'POST'

    }).done(function(data){
        functionToCallAfterAjax(data);
    });


}

Of course you could pass the function to call as a parameter.

This means that if your code was meant to do:

var returnedData = makeRequest(command, postData);
anotherFunction(returnedData);

you should do simply (using the code above)

makeRequest(command, postData, anotherFunction);

and everything will work