Question

This is a module in my iPhone app. It’s purpose is to return an array from a JSON responeText, which can then be added to the data property of an TableView in another module.

Being relatively new to JavaScript I can’t find the right syntax to pass my array to the variable self.

function Events() {
var self = [];

var xhr = Ti.Network.createHTTPClient();
xhr.open('GET', 'http://localhost/ngparser/events.php');

xhr.onload = function() {
    var events = JSON.parse(this.responseText),
        rows = [];

    Ti.API.info('JSON responseText: ');
    Ti.API.info(events);

    for (var i in events) {
        var id = events[i].id,
            title = events[i].title;            

        var amp = title.search('&');
        if (amp != -1) {
            title = title.replace('&', '&');
        }

        var row = Ti.UI.createTableViewRow({
            title: title,
            hasChild: true
        });
        rows.push(row);         
    }

    // I want this...
    return rows;        
};

xhr.send();
self = //... to end up here!
self = xhr.send(); //Does not work
return self;
}

module.exports = Events;

EDIT: A solution was eventually found here http://developer.appcelerator.com/question/133913/how-do-i-pass-result-from-xhronload-function-to-variable#comment-119031

Answer 1

The xhr.onload function is running asynchronously and wont return a value, so returning the rows variable is useless.

What you can do is use the setData method of a table view inside the callback function to add the array of rows to the tableview.

function Events() {
var self = [];

var xhr = Ti.Network.createHTTPClient();
xhr.open('GET', 'http://localhost/ngparser/events.php');

xhr.onload = function() {
    var events = JSON.parse(this.responseText),
        rows = [];

    Ti.API.info('JSON responseText: ');
    Ti.API.info(events);

    for (var i in events) {
        var id = events[i].id,
            title = events[i].title;            

        var amp = title.search('&');
        if (amp != -1) {
            title = title.replace('&', '&');
        }

        var row = Ti.UI.createTableViewRow({
            title: title,
            hasChild: true
        });
        rows.push(row);         
    }
    tableView.setData(rows);

};

xhr.send();
}