What format does responseText return?

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the response.

I did the console log to which the result is in fact string.

What's the best way for me to attach my code on Treehouse? I'm working from localhost so there isn't a web/live version.

It the type is a sting, then charAt() should work. I just ran a test and this line of code console.log(xmlhttp.responseText.charAt(0)); did return the first letter of the string.

What happens when you use charAt()? Do you get an error message? Can you paste the code you're using to access charAt() that might help me figure this out.

My console log is now blank :/

Code below

Function ajaxreq(){

if(window.XMLHttpRequest){

    var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();

}else{

  var xhr = new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLHTTP');

}

     var url = myphpfile.php
     var myvar = "1";

     var vars = "myvar="+myvar;
     vhr.open("POST", url, true);

     vhr.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");

     vhr.onreadystatechange = function(){

      if(vhr.readyState == 4 && vhr.status == 200){

         var returned_string = vhr.responseText;
         console.log(returned_string.charAt(0));

          }


      }

     vhr.send(vars);
     document.getElementById('mydiv').innerHTML = 'LOADING...';

}

console returns blank. Php file is echoing both numbers and text....

I see one problem in your code:

var url=myphpfile.php

You need to put myphpfile.php in quotes:

var url = 'myphpfile.php';

That may be the problem. If not: What happens if you add console.log(returned_string) after var returned_string = vhr.responseText;? Is anything printed to the console?

Have you tried Chrome's Web Dev Tools to debug? This video shows you how you can check responses for Ajax calls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOQDrGrd9H8

Sorry that was a typo...in my code the vars= "myphpfile.php" is in quotes.

Adding console.log before the variable is declared, returns undefined as expected. However console.log(returned_string) after the variable is declared, does in fact return the whole string.....which is most likely why I can add it to divs...alerts etc

The moment I try then to use it in any way i.e charAt() is when it returns a complete blank.....

So it knows it is defined.....to which is why I was surprised when it acknowledges it as a string, as it doesn't seem to want to treat it like one.

I read somewhere that responseText, returns text....so you can't use it...and you need to use JSON or something :s.....if so, I'l stick with passing it through a div and assigning the div's innerHTML to a var....it's two lines of code, just seems like such a poor solution.

I am using google dev tools...in regards to the link you sent....what would I be looking for? It has sent the string.....

Hi Rich,

Without seeing the code or output I can't really say what's going wrong. Here's one idea: you are trying to get the first character of responseText with charAt(0). What is the first character returned? If it's a space or control character you might not see anything. Try a different value like charAt(19) and what happens?

You can also try casting the response as a string:

var returned_string = String(vhr.responseText);

This will force the responseText to be converted into a JavaScript string type. (This is just a wild shot in the dark, however. It really shouldn't be needed)

Right I think I've got it

I put the variable into an object like this

var newstring = new String(returned_string);

console.log(newstring);

it returned my string in a huge list to which the first few were blank

0 = ' ' ; 1 = ' ' ;

until about the 4th one down which using charAt(4) allows me to access the first part of my string.

So, here is a new question....what are the first few array elements of the array :/

Obviously I could just push my char.At(0) to char.At(4) to get the first one.....or use regex to eliminate the blank ones.....but my original solution with the divs seems quicker.

Interested to have your thoughts.

Right, well that's interesting to know then.

In regards to the div method.....is there any cons in using this? Just thinking about saving time as my project is pretty far behind and lots still left to do.

Just tried posting a new php variable and it still gave a gap of 5 array elements....I'l take a look at the php script in detail to see if anything else is being echoed :/ , wouldn't have thought so.