Question

My scenario is this – the user asks for the home page and then the javascript code of the page executes an ajax GET request to the same server to get some object.

The server keeps the home page as a jade template.

So, right now it takes two roundtrips to load the home page:

1. GET the home page
2. GET the JSON object

I am OK with it, but just out of curiosity – what are my options to incorporate the object requested later into the initial GET request of the home page?

I see one way is to have a hidden html element, which inner HTML would be the string representation of the object. A bit awkward, but pretty simple on the server side, given that the home page jade template is preprocessed anyway.

What are my other options?

Please, note that I am perfectly aware that sparing this one roundtrip does not really matter. I am just curious about the techniques.

Answer 1

Another option is to always return a JSON object, then the HTML for your home page would be the value of some property on this object. This would probably require some changes on your client-side logic, though.

One more option: instead of a hidden HTML input/textarea containing a JSON string, the home page code could contain a script block where an object literal is declared as a variable. Something like this:

<script>
var myObj = ... // Your JSON string here.
                // myObj will be an object literal, and you won't need
                // to parse the JSON.
</script>