Javascript getJSON to store parameter as variable outside of function scope issue

Question

Trying to return the date value from a URL via getJSON for the id='alert'. Seems like the getJSON is not working correctly even with async set to False. I took this code from another script that worked correctly.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>


<p><input type="text" id="input" value="100 | 47.6735" rows="30" cols="50"></p>

<button class="btn btn-primary btn-lg" onclick="getAlert()">Get Date Alert</button>

<p id="alert"></p>

<script>

$.ajaxSetup({
    async: false
  });

function getJSON_data(url){
  var date = '1'
  $.getJSON(
    url,
    function(data) {
    var date = data.date
    });  
  
  return {'test':date}
}

function getAlert() {

  var str = document.getElementById("input").value;;
  var res = str.split(" | ");
  var id = res[0];

  var url = 'http://date.jsontest.com/'
 
  var alert = getJSON_data(url).test;
  document.getElementById("alert").innerHTML = alert;
}

</script>

</body>
</html>

Added Async and Promises to the js portion of the script. Can't quite get the date to return in the "alert" portion.

...

function getJSON_data(url){
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    $.getJSON(
      url,
      function({date}) {
        resolve({test: date})
      });
    })
  })
}

function getAlert() {

  var str = document.getElementById("input").value;
  var res = str.split(" | ");
  var id = res[0];
 
  var url = 'http://date.jsontest.com/';

  var alert = (await getJSON_data(url)).test;
  document.getElementById("alert").innerHTML = alert
}

...

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 07 '20 at 14:42

for first, please, never, absolutely never do not use syncronouse ajax, because one time, far far ago, asyncronouse requests was founded for reduce a lot of pain )

for second, you should understand function scope and closure conception:

var globalVar = "some value"

function foo() {
  var varInClosure = "some other value"
  console.log(
    "here we have acces to global var:", globalVar, // some value
    "\nand local var:", varInScope // some other value
  ) 
}

console.log(
  "here we have access only to var in same scope", globalVar, // some value
  "\nbut not to var from other scope", varInScope // undefined
)

In you case, you can select one from to ways, ugly, but working, using global variables, or right and modern - using async/await and promises:

function getJSON_data(url){
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    $.getJSON(
      url,
      function({date}) {
        resolve({test: date})
      });
    })
  })
}

//....

var alert = (await getJSON_data(url)).test;
document.getElementById("alert").innerHTML = alert;

Just added my adjusted code up above, still trying to troubleshoot it since it is not returning the date. Thank you! — Ashley A., Dec 07 '20 at 15:02

Javascript getJSON to store parameter as variable outside of function scope issue

1 Answers1