Question

What I’m currently doing is using jQuery to perform an ajax request on every keypress. So if my user typed d-o-n-k-e-y, it would send one request for each letter. However, since they take different paths to the server on the network, if they type d-o-n-k-e-y too fast, they don’t always arrive in order. They might arrive as D-n-o-k-y-e, and react accordingly. Is there a good way to make sure all the requests get sent in order?

I don’t think waiting for confirmation from a request before sending the next one would work, because it would slow the information transfer so much. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks.

Answer 1

From: http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.ajax/

async boolean
Default: true

By default, all requests are sent
asynchronous (i.e. this is set to true
by default). If you need synchronous
requests, set this option to false.
Cross-domain requests and dataType:
“jsonp” requests do not support
synchronous operation. Note that
synchronous requests may temporarily
lock the browser, disabling any
actions while the request is active.

Also, it may not be the best idea to send an ajax request every single keystroke. Can’t you use a timeout and send a don and key request (buffered up to every 300 ms for example)?