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return value = undefined when i try to call a Ajax-function inside another Ajax-function

i have a function with a XML-HTTP-Request. Unfortunately i don't get back my DB-result when i call this function getUserdataByToken() <-- working, via a second Function sendPost(wall).
I just want to have the return value (array) inside my second function but the value is always "undefined". Can someone help me?
function getUserdataByToken() {
var token = localStorage.getItem("token");
var userDataRequest;
//-AJAX-REQUEST
var xhttp;
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
} else {
// code for IE6, IE5
xhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
}
var url= window.location.protocol+"//"+window.location.host+"/getuserdatabytoken";
var param = "token=" + token;
xhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
if (xhttp.readyState == 4 && xhttp.status == 200) {
userDataRequest = JSON.parse(xhttp.responseText);
if (userDataRequest.success === "false") {
warningMessage('homeMessage', false, userDataRequest.message);
} else {
return userDataRequest;
}
}
};
xhttp.open("POST", url, true);
xhttp.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
xhttp.send(param);
}
Function call via second Function (AJAX) leads too "undefined" Value for "userDataRequest" (return of function 1).
function sendPost(wall) {
var content;
var token = localStorage.getItem("token");
var userData = getUserdataByToken(); // PROBLEM
console.log(userData); // "leads to undefined"
alert(userData); // "leads to undefined"
… Ajax Call etc…
P.S. it's my first post here in stackoverflow, I'm always grateful for tips.
Thanks!

The userdata value only exists within the anonymous Ajax callback function, and you only return it from there. That is pointless because there is nowhere for it to be returned to; certainly the value does not get returned from getUserdataByToken. Don't forget that Ajax calls are asynchronous; when sendPost calls getUserdataByToken the request won't even have been made.
Generally you'd be much better off using a library like jQuery for this whole thing. Apart from making your code much simpler, it will allow you to use things like Promises which are explicitly intended to solve this kind of problem.
(And, do you really need to support IE5? Are you sure?)

Issue with for-loop and standard Javascript AJAX

I have some issues with a for-loop and AJAX. I need to fetch some information from a database, so I pass the incrementing variable to PHP to grab the information and then send it back. The trouble is that it skips immediately to the maximum value, making it impossible to store any of the information.
I would prefer not to use jQuery. It may be more powerful, but I find Javascript easier to understand.
Here is the JS code:
for (var i = 0; i <= 3; i++) {
var js_var = i;
document.getElementById("link").onclick = function () {
// ajax start
var xhr;
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); // all browsers
else xhr = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); // for IE
var url = 'process.php?js_var=' + js_var;
xhr.open('GET', url, false);
xhr.onreadystatechange = function () {
if (xhr.readyState===4 && xhr.status===200) {
var div = document.getElementById('test1');
div.innerHTML = xhr.responseText;
if (js_var == 2) {
var rawr = document.getElementById('test2');
rawr.innerHTML = xhr.responseText;
}
}
}
xhr.send();
// ajax stop
return false;
}
};
Here is the PHP code:
<?php
if (isset($_GET['js_var'])) $count = $_GET['js_var'];
else $count = "<br />js_var is not set!";
$con = mysql_connect("xxx","xxxxx","xxxx");
mysql_select_db('computerparty_d', $con);
$get_hs = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM hearthstone");
$spiller_navn = utf8_encode(mysql_result($get_hs,$count,1));
echo "$spiller_navn";
?>

what you actually are doing is binding an onclick event in your for-loop not sending ajax request, and the other point is, it immediately overrides the previous onclick handler which you have created in the previous iteration.
So if you want to add multiple listeners you should first consider using nested functions and closures to keep the i variable safe for each listener, and then use addEventListener instead of setting the onclick function. Considering these points you can do this instead:
for (var i = 0; i <= 3; i++) {
var clickFunc = (function (js_var) {
return function () {
// ajax start
var xhr;
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); // all browsers
else xhr = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); // for IE
var url = 'process.php?js_var=' + js_var;
xhr.open('GET', url, false);
xhr.onreadystatechange = function () {
if (xhr.readyState === 4 && xhr.status === 200) {
var div = document.getElementById('test1');
div.innerHTML = xhr.responseText;
if (js_var == 2) {
var rawr = document.getElementById('test2');
rawr.innerHTML = xhr.responseText;
}
}
}
xhr.send();
// ajax stop
return false;
};
})(i);
document.getElementById("link").addEventListener("click", clickFunc);
}

Be aware that you're making an synchronous AJAX call, which is undesirable (it hangs the browser during the request, which might not end). You may have problems in some browsers with this because you're calling onreadystatechange, that shouldn't be used with synchronous requests.

It looks like you are making the AJAX request with a user click.
for (var i = 0; i <= 3; i++) {
var js_var = i;
document.getElementById("link").onclick
When this JS is executed it will override the "onclick" listener of "link" twice. First time it is assigned for the first time, second time it is overwritten, and the third time it is overwritten again. The result is that when the "link" element is clicked only the last listener exists, resulting in making a single AJAX request for the last configuration.
HTTP request are expensive(time), it might be worth to get all of the data in one request and then use client-side JS to sift through that data accordingly.
jQuery is not more powerful than JS, it is JS with a bunch of wrapper functions. My personal opinion is that once IE9 is no longer relevant, jQuery will be only used by people who know jQuery and not JS.

JSON.parse fails in function, works in console

I have a simple script that does a cross site request and gets data from a GitHub gist. The data from the Github API is returned as a JSON string. To allow further modification of the data, I want it as a JSON object.
// Create the XHR object.
function createCORSRequest(method, url) {
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
if ("withCredentials" in xhr) {
// XHR for Chrome/Firefox/Opera/Safari.
xhr.open(method, url, true);
} else if (typeof XDomainRequest != "undefined") {
// XDomainRequest for IE.
xhr = new XDomainRequest();
xhr.open(method, url);
} else {
// CORS not supported.
xhr = null;
}
return xhr;
}
var tmpJSON = "";
var gistData = "";
var gistID = "5789756";
var gitAPI = "https://api.github.com/gists/"
var gistQuery = gitAPI + gistID;
function incrementGist() {
gistData = createCORSRequest('GET', gistQuery);
gistData.send();
tmpJSON = JSON.parse(gistData.response);
}
In the html page, I have
<p><input type="button" value="Increment" OnClick="incrementGist()"></p>
If I actually hit the button, the error I get is:
Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected end of input
But if I subsequently open the console and run this:
var crap = JSON.parse(gistData.response);
it works just fine. This happens in both Firefox and Chrome. I really don't see why the JSON.parse command fails inside a function call, but not in the console. An actual page is set up here

The problem is that you're trying to read the response before the server answered.
You must read the response in a callback. For example :
gistData = createCORSRequest('GET', gistQuery);
gistData.onreadystatechange = function() {
if (gistData.readyState === 4) {
if (gistData.status === 200) {
tmpJSON = JSON.parse(gistData.response);
... use tmpJSON...
... which should not be called so as it is not JSON...
... maybe tmpObject ?
}
}
}
gistData.send();

That's because you are not waiting the request to actually finish. I don't know your API but try waiting the server response then parse your JSON. you could try with a SetTimeout first to see that it is working but you nee to do something like in jQuery with its' success:function(...) callback

How to load a text file in JavaScript?

I'm creating a simple WebGL project and need a way to load in models. I decided to use OBJ format so I need a way to load it in. The file is (going to be) stored on the server and my question is: how does one in JS load in a text file and scan it line by line, token by token (like with streams in C++)? I'm new to JS, hence my question. The easier way, the better.
UPDATE: I used your solution, broofa, but I'm not sure if I did it right. I load the data from a file in forEach loop you wrote but outside of it (i.e. after all your code) the object I've been filling data with is "undefined". What am I doing wrong? Here's the code:
var materialFilename;
function loadOBJModel(filename)
{
// ...
var req = new XMLHttpRequest();
req.open('GET', filename);
req.responseType = 'text';
req.onreadystatechange = function()
{
if (req.readyState == 4)
{
var lines = req.responseText.split(/\n/g);
lines.forEach(function(line)
{
readLine(line);
});
}
}
req.send();
alert(materialFilename);
// ...
}
function readLine(line)
{
// ...
else if (tokens[0] == "mtllib")
{
materialFilename = tokens[1];
}
// ...
}

You can use XMLHttpRequest to fetch the file, assuming it's coming from the same domain as your main web page. If not, and you have control over the server hosting your file, you can enable CORS without too much trouble. E.g.
To scan line-by-line, you can use split(). E.g. Something like this ...
var req = new XMLHttpRequest();
req.open('GET', '/your/url/goes/here');
req.onreadystatechange = function() {
if (req.readyState == 4) {
if (req.status == 200) {
var lines = req.responseText.split(/\n/g);
lines.forEach(function(line, i) {
// 'line' is a line of your file, 'i' is the line number (starting at 0)
});
} else {
// (something went wrong with the request)
}
}
}
req.send();

If you can't simply load the data with XHR or CORS, you could always use the JSON-P method by wrapping it with a JavaScript function and dynamically attaching the script tag to your page.
You would have a server-side script that would accept a callback parameter, and return something like callback1234(/* file data here */);.
Once you have the data, parsing should be trivial, but you will have to write your own parsing functions. Nothing exists for that out of the box.

Reading first line of a text file in javascript

Let's say I have a text file on my web server under /today/changelog-en.txt which stores information about updates to my website. Each section starts with a version number, then a list of the changes.
Because of this, the first line of the file always contains the latest version number, which I'd like to read out using plain JavaScript (no jQuery). Is this possible, and if yes, how?

This should be simple enough using XHR. Something like this would work fine for you:
var XHR = new XMLHttpRequest();
XHR.open("GET", "/today/changelog-en.txt", true);
XHR.send();
XHR.onload = function (){
console.log( XHR.responseText.slice(0, XHR.responseText.indexOf("\n")) );
};

So seeing as the txt file is externally available ie: corresponds to a URL, we can do an XHR/AJAX request to get the data. Note without jQuery, so we'll be writing slightly more verbose vanilla JavaScript.
var xmlHttp;
function GetData( url, callback ) {
xmlHttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
xmlHttp.onreadystatechange = callback;
xmlHttp.open( "GET", url, true );
xmlHttp.send( null );
}
GetData( "/today/changelog-en.txt" , function() {
if ( xmlHttp.readyState == 4 && xmlHttp.status == 200 {
var result = xmlHttp.responseText;
var allLines = result.split("\n");
// do what you want with the result
// ie: split lines and show the first line
var lineOne = allLines[0];
} else {
// handle the error
}
});