How AJAX works using the jQuery library

We will use the jQuery library to demonstrate this. I assume that you know the basics of the jQuery library.

The jQuery library provides several different methods for making AJAX calls, although here we will look at the standard ajax method that is most commonly used.

Take a look at the following example.

01 <script>
02 $.ajax(
03 ‘request_ajax_data.php’,
04 {
05 success: function(data) {
06 alert(‘AJAX call was successful!’);
07 alert(‘Data from the server’ + data);
08 },
09 error: function() {
10 alert(‘There was some error performing the AJAX call!’);
11 }
12 }
13 );
14 </script>.

As you already know, the $ sign is used to reference a jQuery object.

The first parameter of the ajax method is the URL that will be called in the background to retrieve content from the server side. The second parameter is in JSON format and allows you to specify values for some of the various parameters supported by the ajax method.

In most cases you will need to specify callback functions (callbacks) for success and for errors. The callback function for success will be called after the successful completion of the AJAX call. The response returned by the server will be passed to the callback for success. On the other hand, the error callback will be called if something goes wrong and there is a problem with the AJAX callback.

So, as you can see, AJAX operations are easy to perform using the jQuery library. In fact, the process is more or less the same, regardless of the JavaScript library you decide to perform AJAX calls with.