Question

I’m having a nightmare trying to do this.
I must have tried about 15 different methods so far from different posts I’ve read but all have failed.

I am just trying to get a return value from an ajax post.
Here is my code

var test = compareNew(this.name, "remove");
alert(test);

function compareNew(obj, action) {
  $.ajax({
    url: "AJAX_compare_server.php",
    type: 'post',
    data: {
      compare_id:  obj,
      action:   action
    },
      success: function (result) {
      var myObject = eval("(" + result + ")");
      alert(myObject.html);
      return(result);
    }
  });
}

The alert(myObject.html); correctly shows me the html returned but the alert(test); shows me ‘undefined’.
I’ve spent hours on this but can’t figure it out.
Can you see what I’m missing?

Answer 1

Actually return won’t work in an asynchronous call but if you set async:false then it’ll work, in this (synchronous call) case you may try this

function compareNew(obj, action) {
    $.ajax({
        url: "AJAX_compare_server.php",
        type: 'post',
        data: {
            compare_id:  obj,
            action:   action
        },
        success: function(result) { 
            returnresult(result); // will call the function and will alert
        }
    });
}

function returnresult(ret){
    // Do whatever you want to do with the result
    if(ret) alert(ret);
}
compareNew(this.name, "remove");

Also you can use it like

function compareNew(obj, action, callBack) {
    $.ajax({
        //...
        success: function(result) { 
            callBack(result);
        }
    });
}

And call it like

compareNew(this.name, "remove", function(data){
    alert(data);
});