Book Excerpts : AJAX Hacks :


AJAX Hacks

by Bruce W. Perry

AJAX, the popular term for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is one of the most important combinations of technologies for Web developers to know these days. With its rich grouping of technologies, AJAX developers can create interactive Web applications with XML-based Web services, using JavaScript in the browser to process the Web server response.

Taking complete advantage of AJAX, however, requires something more than your typical "how-to" book. What it calls for is AJAX Hacks from O'Reilly. This valuable guide provides direct, hands-on solutions that take the mystery out of AJAX's many capabilities. Each hack represents a clever way to accomplish a specific task, saving you countless hours of searching for the right answer.

A smart collection of 100 insider tips and tricks, AJAX Hacks covers all of the technology's finer points. Want to build next-generation Web applications today? This book can show you how. Among the multitude of topics addressed, it shows you techniques for:

  • Using AJAX with Google Maps and Yahoo Maps.
  • Displaying Weather.com data.
  • Scraping stock quotes.
  • Fetching postal codes.
  • Building Web forms with auto-complete functionality.
This guide also features a number of advanced hacks for accelerated Web developers. Discover how to create huge, maintainable bookmarklets, how to use client-side storage for AJAX applications, and how to call a built-in Java object from JavaScript using AJAX. The book even addresses best practices for testing AJAX applications and improving maintenance, performance, and reliability for JavaScript code.

This except contains the following five hacks:

  • Detect Browser Compatibility with the Request Object
  • Use the Request Object to POST Data to the Server
  • Use Your Own Library for XMLHttpRequest
  • Receive Data as XML
  • Get Plain Old Strings

Download this PDF excerpt of Hacks 1 through 5.

Reproduced from AJAX Hacks (ISBN 0-596-10169-4) by permission of O'Reilly Media, Inc. Copyright © 2006 O'Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

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