tmt.net

tmt.net is a JavaScript library that abstracts the use of XMLHttpRequest and manages HTTP requests using Ajax. It's lightweight, rock-solid and offers some unique features

What's different in tmt.net?. Why do we need yet another XMLHttpRequest library?

• Every Ajax framework offers XMLHttpRequest functionalities, but using a whole framework only for XMLHttpRequest can be overkilling
• There are plenty of dedicated, lightweight XMLHttpRequest libraries too. Unfortunately they typically aren't rock-solid, lacking essential features like proper error handling or timeout
• Many Ajax frameworks, even very popular ones, don't handle timeout in HTTP calls at all, leaving the browser to abort the request based on its own internal settings. This is very dangerous, since the HTTP specification allow only two concurrent requests for each domain
• tmt.net allows you to "attach" any arbitrary amount of data to an HTTP call by using the contextData argument (see below). That data is easily and accesible to the callback, making Ajax programming much easier

HTTP requests issues by tmt.net contain "tmt.net" as the X-Requested-With header

tmt.net is also used as an helper for CSI and Ajaxform

In order to use this library you need tmt_net.js

Samples

• Sample
• Error handling sample

API

tmt.net.httpRequest()	Perform an HTTP request. You can either use a list of arguments or a single object containing name/value pairs. While using a list of arguments tends to be simpler, the single object argument gives you more flexibility Available arguments using list: url. String (required) loadCallback. Function name (required) errback. Function name method. String (POST, GET or HEAD) params. An object containing name value pairs Available arguments using object: url. String (required) loadCallback. Function name (required) errback. Function name method. String (POST, GET or HEAD) params. An object containing name value pairs contentType. String timeout. Number of milliseconds. Default to 60000 (60 seconds) headers. An array of objects with name/value pairs contextData. This is a very special kind of argument, an object where the caller can store any arbitrary content that will be available inside the callback See sample Inside callbacks you can access: this.response.responseText: HTTP response as text this.response.responseXML: HTTP response as XML (if any) this.response.status: HTTP status code this.response.statusText: HTTP status text this.response.url: url this.response.allResponseHeaders: whole HTTP response header as a single string this.response.contextData: any arbitrary content specified using the contextData argument (see above)
tmt.net.isSupported()	Returns true if the current browser is supported by the library, false otherwise
request.abort()	You can programmatically abort an ongoing HTTP request like: var req = tmt.net.httpRequest("myurl.html",myCallback); req.abort(); (see sample)

Gotchas

• Keep in mind, XMLHttpRequest expects UTF-8 and will force the response to UTF-8. Any non-UTF-8 charset you send downstream may be turned into rubbish
• If your server-side code needs to discriminate between an HTTP request issued by this library and one issued by a traditional user-agent; you can check the X-Requested-With HTTP header
• You can't send HTTP requests to a different domain
• Please note this library wasn't designed to be newbie-proof, a decent understanding of JavaScript and HTTP is required to use it properly