Book Image

HTML5 Data and Services Cookbook

Book Image

HTML5 Data and Services Cookbook

Overview of this book

HTML5 is everywhere. From PCs to tablets to smartphones and even TVs, the web is the most ubiquitous application platform and information medium bar. Its becoming a first class citizen in established operating systems such as Microsoft Windows 8 as well as the primary platform of new operating systems such as Google Chrome OS. "HTML5 Data and Services Cookbook" contains over 100 recipes explaining how to utilize modern features and techniques when building websites or web applications. This book will help you to explore the full power of HTML5 - from number rounding to advanced graphics to real-time data binding. "HTML5 Data and Services Cookbook" starts with the display of text and related data. Then you will be guided through graphs and animated visualizations followed by input and input controls. Data serialization, validation and communication with the server as well as modern frameworks with advanced features like automatic data binding and server communication will also be covered in detail.This book covers a fast track into new libraries and features that are part of HTML5!
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
HTML5 Data and Services Cookbook
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Creating an HTTP GET request to fetch JSON


One of the basic means of retrieving information from the server is using HTTP GET. This type of method in a RESTful manner should be only used for reading data. So, GET calls should never change server state. Now, this may not be true for every possible case, for example, if we have a view counter on a certain resource, is that a real change? Well, if we follow the definition literally then yes, this is a change, but it's far from significant to be taken into account.

Opening a web page in a browser does a GET request, but often we want to have a scripted way of retrieving data. This is usually to achieve Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX), allowing reloading of data without doing a complete page reload. Despite the name, the use of XML is not required, and these days, JSON is the format of choice.

A combination of JavaScript and the XMLHttpRequest object provides a method for exchanging data asynchronously, and in this recipe, we are going to...