In Firefox 3, the answer is 6 per domain: as soon as a 7th XmlHttpRequest (on any tab) to the same domain is fired, it is queued until one of the other 6 finish.
What are the numbers for the other major browsers?
Also, are there ways around these limits without having my users modify their browser settings? For example, are there limits to the number of jsonp requests (which use script tag injection rather than an XmlHttpRequest object)?
Background: My users can make XmlHttpRequests from a web page to the server, asking the server to run ssh commands on remote hosts. If the remote hosts are down, the ssh command takes a few minutes to fail, eventually preventing my users from performing any further commands.
One trick you can use to increase the number of concurrent connections is to host your images from a different sub domain. These will be treated as separate requests, each domain is what will be limited to the concurrent maximum.
IE6, IE7 - have a limit of two. IE8 is 6 if you have a broadband - 2 (if it's a dial up).
The network results at Browserscope will give you both Connections per Hostname and Max Connections for popular browsers. The data is gathered by running tests on users "in the wild," so it will stay up to date.
With IE6 / IE7 one can tweak the number of concurrent requests in the registry. Here's how to set it to four each.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings]
"MaxConnectionsPerServer"=dword:00000004
"MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server"=dword:00000004
I just checked with www.browserscope.org and with IE9 and Chrome 24 you can have 6 concurrent connections to a single domain, and up to 17 to multiple ones.
According to IE 9 – What’s Changed? on the HttpWatch blog, IE9 still has a 2 connection limit when over VPN.
Using a VPN Still Clobbers IE 9 Performance
We previously reported
about the scaling back of the maximum
number of concurrent connections in IE
8 when your PC uses a VPN connection.
This happened even if the browser
traffic didn’t go over that
connection.
Unfortunately, IE 9 is affected by VPN
connections in the same way:
I have writen a single file AJAX tester. Enjoy it!!!
Just because I have had problems with my hosting provider
<?php /*
Author: Luis Siquot
Purpose: Check ajax performance and errors
License: GPL
site5: Please don't drop json requests (nor delay)!!!!
*/
$r = (int)$_GET['r'];
$w = (int)$_GET['w'];
if($r) {
sleep($w);
echo json_encode($_GET);
die ();
} //else
?><head>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var _settimer;
var _timer;
var _waiting;
$(function(){
clearTable();
$('#boton').bind('click', donow);
})
function donow(){
var w;
var estim = 0;
_waiting = $('#total')[0].value * 1;
clearTable();
for(var r=1;r<=_waiting;r++){
w = Math.floor(Math.random()*6)+2;
estim += w;
dodebug({r:r, w:w});
$.ajax({url: '<?php echo $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']; ?>',
data: {r:r, w:w},
dataType: 'json', // 'html',
type: 'GET',
success: function(CBdata, status) {
CBdebug(CBdata);
}
});
}
doStat(estim);
timer(estim+10);
}
function doStat(what){
$('#stat').replaceWith(
'<table border="0" id="stat"><tr><td>Request Time Sum=<th>'+what+
'<td> /2=<th>'+Math.ceil(what/2)+
'<td> /3=<th>'+Math.ceil(what/3)+
'<td> /4=<th>'+Math.ceil(what/4)+
'<td> /6=<th>'+Math.ceil(what/6)+
'<td> /8=<th>'+Math.ceil(what/8)+
'<td> (seconds)</table>'
);
}
function timer(what){
if(what) {_timer = 0; _settimer = what;}
if(_waiting==0) {
$('#showTimer')[0].innerHTML = 'completed in <b>' + _timer + ' seconds</b> (aprox)';
return ;
}
if(_timer<_settimer){
$('#showTimer')[0].innerHTML = _timer;
setTimeout("timer()",1000);
_timer++;
return;
}
$('#showTimer')[0].innerHTML = '<b>don\'t wait any more!!!</b>';
}
function CBdebug(what){
_waiting--;
$('#req'+what.r)[0].innerHTML = 'x';
}
function dodebug(what){
var tt = '<tr><td>' + what.r + '<td>' + what.w + '<td id=req' + what.r + '> '
$('#debug').append(tt);
}
function clearTable(){
$('#debug').replaceWith('<table border="1" id="debug"><tr><td>Request #<td>Wait Time<td>Done</table>');
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<center>
<input type="button" value="start" id="boton">
<input type="text" value="80" id="total" size="2"> concurrent json requests
<table id="stat"><tr><td> </table>
Elapsed Time: <span id="showTimer"></span>
<table id="debug"></table>
</center>
</body>
Edit:
r means row and w waiting time.
When you initially press start button 80 (or any other number) of concurrent ajax request are launched by javascript, but as is known they are spooled by the browser. Also they are requested to the server in parallel (limited to certain number, this is the fact of this question). Here the requests are solved server side with a random delay (established by w). At start time all the time needed to solve all ajax calls is calculated. When test is finished, you can see if it took half, took third, took a quarter, etc of the total time, deducting which was the parallelism on the calls to the server. This is not strict, nor precise, but is nice to see in real time how ajaxs calls are completed (seeing the incoming cross). And is a very simple self contained script to show ajax basics.
Of course, this assumes, that server side is not introducing any extra limit.
Preferably use in conjunction with firebug net panel (or your browser's equivalent)
Wrote my own test. tested the code on stackoverflow, works fine tells me that chrome/FF can do 6
var change = 0;
var simultanius = 0;
var que = 20; // number of tests
Array(que).join(0).split(0).forEach(function(a,i){
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest;
xhr.open("GET", "/?"+i); // cacheBust
xhr.onreadystatechange = function() {
if(xhr.readyState == 2){
change++;
simultanius = Math.max(simultanius, change);
}
if(xhr.readyState == 4){
change--;
que--;
if(!que){
console.log(simultanius);
}
}
};
xhr.send();
});
it works for most websites that can trigger readystate change event at different times. (aka: flushing)
I notice on my node.js server that i had to output at least 1025 bytes to trigger the event/flush. otherwise the events would just trigger all three state at once when the request is complete so here is my backend:
var app = require('express')();
app.get("/", function(req,res) {
res.write(Array(1025).join("a"));
setTimeout(function() {
res.end("a");
},500);
});
app.listen(80);
Update
I notice that You can now have up to 2x request if you are using both xhr and fetch api at the same time
var change = 0;
var simultanius = 0;
var que = 30; // number of tests
Array(que).join(0).split(0).forEach(function(a,i){
fetch("/?b"+i).then(r => {
change++;
simultanius = Math.max(simultanius, change);
return r.text()
}).then(r => {
change--;
que--;
if(!que){
console.log(simultanius);
}
});
});
Array(que).join(0).split(0).forEach(function(a,i){
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest;
xhr.open("GET", "/?a"+i); // cacheBust
xhr.onreadystatechange = function() {
if(xhr.readyState == 2){
change++;
simultanius = Math.max(simultanius, change);
}
if(xhr.readyState == 4){
change--;
que--;
if(!que){
document.body.innerHTML = simultanius;
}
}
};
xhr.send();
});
I believe there is a maximum number of concurrent http requests that browsers will make to the same domain, which is in the order of 4-8 requests depending on the user's settings and browser.
You could set up your requests to go to different domains, which may or may not be feasible. The Yahoo guys did a lot of research in this area, which you can read about (here). Remember that every new domain you add also requires a DNS lookup. The YSlow guys recommend between 2 and 4 domains to achieve a good compromise between parallel requests and DNS lookups, although this is focusing on the page's loading time, not subsequent AJAX requests.
Can I ask why you want to make so many requests? There is good reasons for the browsers limiting the number of requests to the same domain. You will be better off bundling requests if possible.
A Good reason to move to http 2.0
With http2.0 the maximum number of connections per host is virtually unlimited: Is the per-host connection limit raised with HTTP/2?
Related
I'm trying to create a simple game (like Agar.io) in real time using Cordova: Javascript, AJAX, PHP & MySQL.
The code works great:
1) JS Send X and Y to PHP server
2) PHP saves X and Y to MySQL Database
3) PHP retrieves X and Y from MySQL Database
4) PHP posts X and Y
5) JS retrieves PHP post of X and Y
6) Display circle at retrieved X and Y coordinates
Now for the problem..
It's very slow! This whole process takes about 1 second to complete (giving it 1 second delay). Also, some times it even lags from 2-10 seconds!
I understand this method isn't the quickest, but I still feel like I may be doing something wrong or inefficient.
HELP
It may be that this is the most efficient way possible, but I feel I am doing something wrong. Or maybe there is a better method of doing this?
Also, I am currently using HostMonster, Shared account (Maybe that's the issue?), which I'm waiting for them to open so I can upgrade to a Dedicated server and try it on there.
Note: In the mean time, I'm really trying to avoid using Node.js / Websockets because servers are just very pricey. And the free ones are very limited =/
Worse comes to worse, I will learn more JS PHP MySQL :)
JAVASCRIPT
function update
{
ctx.clearRect(0, 0, c.width, c.height);
ctx.drawImage(test, positionX - c.width/40, positionY - c.width/40, c.width/20, c.width/20);
if((directionX != positionX || directionY != positionY) &&
dataServerSendOn && dataServerGetOn)
{
dataServerSendOn = false;
dataServerGetOn = false;
setTimeout(function(){requestAnimationFrame(sendData);}, FPS);
}
requestAnimationFrame(update);
}
function sendData()
{
var params = "uuid=" + uuid + "&directionX=" + directionX + "&directionY=" + directionY;
http.open("POST", url, true);
//Send the proper header information along with the request
http.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
http.onreadystatechange =
function()//Call a function when the state changes.
{
if(http.readyState == 4 && http.status == 200)
{
dataServerSendOn = true;
requestAnimationFrame(getData);
}
}
http.send(params);
}
function getData()
{
xmlhttp.onreadystatechange =
function()
{
/*
* 0: Hasn't Started
* 1: Connected to the Server
* 2: Server has received our request
* 3: Server Processing
* 4: Request is finished and data is ready
*/
if(xmlhttp.readyState == 4 && xmlhttp.status == 200)
{
httpTransferString = xmlhttp.responseText;
requestAnimationFrame(sortData);
}
}
xmlhttp.open("GET", "http://www.example.com/game", true);
xmlhttp.send();
}
function sortData()
{
positionX = "";
positionY = "";
for(var i = 0; httpTransferString[i] != '&'; i++)
{
positionX += httpTransferString[i];
}
for(var i = positionX.length + 1; httpTransferString[i] != '#'; i++)
{
positionY += httpTransferString[i];
}
dataServerGetOn = true;
}
PHP
<?php
require 'core.php';
require 'connect.php';
if(loggedin())
{
if(isset($_POST['uuid']) &&
isset($_POST['directionX']) &&
isset($_POST['directionY']))
{
$uuid = $_POST["uuid"];
$directionX = $_POST["directionX"];
$directionY = $_POST["directionY"];
$query = "SELECT `UUID` FROM `users` WHERE `UUID`='$uuid'";
if($query_run = mysql_query($query))
{
$queryX = "UPDATE `users` SET `x` = '$directionX' WHERE `uuid`='$uuid'";
$query_runX = mysql_query($queryX);
$queryY = "UPDATE `users` SET `y` = '$directionY' WHERE `uuid`='$uuid'";
$query_runY = mysql_query($queryY);
}
}
}
else
{
echo "You're not logged in";
}
?>
<form name="tcpForm" action="<?php echo $current_file; ?>" method="POST">
UUID <input type="text" name="uuid"> <br>
directionX <input type="text" name="directionX"><br>
directionY <input type="text" name="directionY"><br>
<input type="submit" value="Send">
</form>
Please any advice I will greatly appreciate, I am still a noob =]
HTTP is not considered to be the best choice when it comes to real-time applications as it does not provide a full two-way communication. This means that whenever something changes on the server-side there will be no way to notify the client. The client would need to either to send a lot of requests, which puts a lot of load on the server or use long-polling. Long-polling is a way, actually more of a hack, to partially circumvent the lack of two-way communication in HTTP. It consists of the client sending a request to the server and the server keeping the connection open until there is something to respond back to the client. This is also not optimal as the server might run out of sockets.
Now for a good real-time service (or a game) you could use some of the protocols that are specifically targeted towards real-time. Enter WebSockets and WebRTC.
WebSockets are persistent duplex (two-way) connections between a server and a client which allow the client to send and receive much smaller "requests", basically only the app-specific data, to the server. Unlike HTTP this a persistent connection, which means that you don't need to send additional data with each request (headers for ex.). Another great thing is that WebSockets are supported in all major browsers and are currently becoming a de-facto standard for real-time comms.
WebRTC - this is a peer-to-peer connection protocol where you connect to other clients for communication and not directly to the server. This pretty much means that your players would connect directly to each other and this would be even faster as they would not be connecting to a centralized location, which could suffer from performance issues or network degradation. It is supported by most modern browser, with IE trailing behind.
So these are the best available options for creating real-time services/applications. I'd recommend using WebSockets as it is more mature and has a bigger adoption at the moment. If you have your mind set on using PHP you can checkout some of the ready-made libraries for working with websockets such as http://socketo.me/
I'm making a chat script using jQuery and JSON, but my hosting suspends it due to 'resources usage limit'. I want to know if it is possible (and how) to reduce these requests. I read one question in which they tell something about an Ajax timeout, but I'm not very good at Ajax. The code is:
function getOnJSON() {
var from;
var to;
var msg_id;
var msg_txt;
var new_chat_string;
//Getting the data from the JSON file
$.getJSON("/ajax/end.emu.php", function(data) {
$.each(data.notif, function(i, data) {
from = data.from;
to = data.to;
msg_id = data.id;
msg_txt = data.text;
if ($("#chat_" + from + "").length === 0) {
$("#boxes").append('...some stuf...');
$('#' + from + '_form').submit(function(){
contactForm = $(this);
valor = $(this + 'input:text').val();
destinatary = $(this + 'input[type=hidden]').val();
reponse_id = destinatary + "_input";
if (!$(this + 'input:text').val()) {
return false;
}
else {
$.ajax({
url: "/ajax/end.emu.php?ajax=true",
type: contactForm.attr('method'),
data: contactForm.serialize(),
success: function(data){
responsed = $.trim(data);
if (responsed != "success") {
alert("An error occured while posting your message");
}
else {
$('#' + reponse_id).val("");
}
}
});
return false;
}
});
$('#' + from + '_txt').jScrollPane({
stickToBottom: true,
maintainPosition: true
});
$('body').append('<embed src="http://cdn.live-pin.com/assets/pling.mp3" autostart="true" hidden="true" loop="false">');
}
else {
var pane2api = $('#' + from + '_txt').data('jsp');
var originalContent = pane2api.getContentPane().html();
pane2api.getContentPane().append('<li id="' + msg_id + '_txt_msg" class="chat_txt_msg">' + msg_txt + '</li>');
pane2api.reinitialise();
pane2api.scrollToBottom();
$('embed').remove();
$('body').append('<embed src="http://cdn.live-pin.com/assets/pling.mp3" autostart="true" hidden="true" loop="false">');
}
});
});
}
The limit is of 600 reqs/5 min, and I need to make it almost each second. I had a year already paid and they have no refund, also I can't modify the server, just have access to cPanel.
Well, 600 req/5 min is pretty restrictive if you want to make a request/sec for each user. Essentially, that gives you that each user will make 60 req/min. Or 300/5 min. In other words, even if you optimize your script to combine the two requests to one, at maximum you can have two users at your site ;) Not much I guess...
You have two options:
Stick with making a chat system through Ajax requests and change the hosting provider. This might be actually cheaper if you don't have the skills to do 2.
Forget about making an Ajax request to poll and potentially another to push every second. Implement something around web sockets, long-polling or even XMPP.
If you go that route, I would look at socket.io for a transparent library that uses web sockets where they are supported and has fallbacks to long polling and others for the rest. For the XMPP-way, there is the excellent Strophe.js. Note that both routes are much more complex than your Ajax requests and will require a lot of server logic changes.
I don't think that checking each second is really a good idea, in my opinion for online chat 2/3 seconds check should be far enough.
To get less request, you can also add a check on the user activity in client side, if the windows is inactive you can lengthen the checking time, going back to 2/3 seconds when the user come back active, that will allow you to save resources and requests / minutes
I'm working on a project right now that requires keeping the UI in sync with server events. I've been using long polling which does indeed reduce the number of ajax calls, but then it put's the burden on the server to listen for the event that the client is interested in, which isn't fun either.
I'm about to switch over to socket.io which I will set up as a separate push service.
existing server --> pushes to sockt.io server --> pushes to subscribing client
ggozad's response is good, I also recommend web sockets. They work only with newer browser models, so if you want to make it available on all browsers you will need a small Flash bridge (Flash can communicate with sockets very easily and also it can call JavaScript functions and be called from JavaScript). Also, Flash offers P2P if you are interested. http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/cirrus/
Also, for server side you can look into Node.js if you are a JavaScript fan like me :)
To complete my response: there is no way to make an Ajax based chat in witch you are limited to 600 requests/5 min (2 requests/second), want to make a request/second and want more than two users.
Solution: switch to sockets or P2P.
I recommend you to call that paid service from the server side using a single thread (as an API proxy). You can still poll with 600 requests/5 min in this thread. Then every client do Ajax requests to poll or long-poll to your server API proxy without limitation.
For the past 2 months I have been experiencing Amazon Cloudfront intermittent failures (2-3 times a week) whereby the page would load from my web server but all the assets from the CDN would block in pending for minutes at the time (I confirmed that with shell curl from different datacenters some work some don't depending on the edge location - London?). Once the pending requests succeed all goes back to normal.
We have been reporting this to amazon but they always reply with "Don't expect reply from us. If gazillion people will complain only then will we consider looking into this" kind of message. Often it resumes normal operation before I'm done writing the support request.
I came to a conclusion that the best way to proceed due to lack of development time for migrating to other CDN is to add a script in the html header that will let us know whenever something similar happens. So say in the header try to download a tiny gif from the CDN if the request takes longer than N msec then call an arbitrary url within the root domain (for monitoring).
The question:
How does one reliably, across all popular browsers, request a file with callback on timeout. i.e.:
request file from CDN using AJAX - will not work due to cross-domain limitations?
setTimeout("callbackTimeout",2000) callbackTimeout(){getElementById() else ...HttpWebRequest...} - would that be blocked by pending HttpWebRequest request or will it work?
How else?
Thanks.
This has been briefly tested in IE.7&8, up to date FF on Windows & OSX as well as Chrome. I suggest you test it yourself. Minify! If you know better way of doing this please suggest your improvements. The way using i.e. script instead of an image has been considered and decided against probably mostly due to my ignorance.
The next version will write a cookie on timeout and the future requests will be handled on the server side (using relative asset path). The cookie will expire after say 30 minutes. Every consecutive timeout will renew that cookie. Not sure how I'll handle the first failover. Could be a redirect (not very elegant but simple). Perhaps I will figure out smarter way (possibly more elegant but more complex too).
<script type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[
// Absolute path to a picture on your CDN to be monitored
cdnImagePath = "http://YOURCDNADDRESS.net/empty.gif";
//this is relative path (cross domain limitation)
//will be followed by "timeout" or "other" as a reason i.e. /cdnMonitor.php?message=timeout
cdnMonitoringPath = "/cdnMonitor.php?message=";
// Recommended 3000 for 3 second(s) timeout
cdnTimeoutMilisec = 3000;
// Set to true to be notified after timeout (provides extra information)
cdnNotifyAfterTimeout = false;
// Handler methods
cdnOK = function(){
if (!cdnTimer && cdnNotifyAfterTimeout) cdnNotify('success');
}
cdnFail = function(reason){
if (reason != "timeout") {
if (cdnTimer) clearTimeout(cdnTimer);
message = "error"
} else {
message = reason;
}
cdnNotify(message);
}
cdnTimeout = function() {
cdnTimer = false;
if (cdnImage.complete == false) {
cdnFail("timeout");
}
}
cdnNotify = function(message) {
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
xmlhttp.open("GET", cdnMonitoringPath + message, true);
xmlhttp.send();
} else {// code for IE6, IE5
xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
}
}
// Load test image and define event handlers
cdnTimer = setTimeout("cdnTimeout()", cdnTimeoutMilisec);
cdnImage = new Image();
cdnImage.onload = cdnOK;
cdnImage.onerror = cdnFail;
cdnImage.src = cdnImagePath + "?" + Math.floor(Math.random()*1000000);
//]]>
</script>
Also this is what I'll use for ad hoc monitoring on the server side cdnMonitor.php:
error_log(date('Y-m-d H:i:s.') .next(explode('.',microtime(1))). ' - '. $_GET['message'] . ' - '. $_SERVER['HTTP_X_REAL_IP']. ' - ' . $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ."\n", 3, '/tmp/cdnMonitor.log');
You will need to change the "HTTP_X_REAL_IP" to REMOTE_ADDR or whatever suits your needs. I use reverse proxy so that's what I do.
Lastly I made some last minute changes in the post editor and might have broken something. Fingers crossed.
I have an issue, mainly with IE.
I need to be able to handle n queries one after another. But If I simply call my function below in a for loop IE does some strange things (like loading only so many of the calls).
If I use an alert box it proves that the function gets all of the calls, and surprisingly IT WORKS!
My guess is that IE needs more time than other browsers, and the alert box does just that.
Here is my code:
var Ajax = function(all) {
this.xhr = new XMLHTTPREQUEST(); // Function returns xhr object/ activeX
this.uri = function(queries) { // Takes an object and formats query string
var qs = "", i = 0, len = size(queries);
for (value in queries) {
qs += value + "=" + queries[value];
if (++i <= len) { qs += "&"; }
}
return qs;
};
xhr.onreadystatechange = function() { // called when content is ready
if (this.readyState === 4) {
if (this.status === 200) {
all.success(this.responseText, all.params);
}
this.abort();
}
};
this.post = function() { // POST
xhr.open("POST", all.where, true);
xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
xhr.send(uri(all.queries));
};
this.get = function() { // GET
xhr.open("GET", all.where + "?" + uri(all.queries), true);
xhr.send();
};
if (this instanceof Ajax) {
return this.Ajax;
} else {
return new Ajax(all);
}
};
This function works perfectly for a single request, but how can I get it to work when called so many times within a loop?
I think the problem might be related to the 2 concurrent connections limit that most web browsers implement.
It looks like the latency of your web service to respond is making your AJAX requests overlap, which in turn is exceeding the 2 concurrent connections limit.
You may want to check out these articles regarding this limitation:
The Dreaded 2 Connection Limit
The Two HTTP Connection Limit Issue
Circumventing browser connection limits for fun and profit
This limit is also suggested in the HTTP spec: section 8.14 last paragraph, which is probably the main reason why most browsers impose it.
To work around this problem, you may want to consider the option of relaunching your AJAX request ONLY after a successful response from the previous AJAX call. This will prevent the overlap from happening. Consider the following example:
function autoUpdate () {
var ajaxConnection = new Ext.data.Connection();
ajaxConnection.request({
method: 'GET',
url: '/web-service/',
success: function (response) {
// Add your logic here for a successful AJAX response.
// ...
// ...
// Relaunch the autoUpdate() function in 100ms. (Could be less or more)
setTimeout(autoUpdate, 100);
}
}
}
This example uses ExtJS, but you could very easily use just XMLHttpRequest.
Given that the limit to a single domain is 2 concurrent connections in most browsers, it doesn't confer any speed advantage launching more than 2 concurrent requests. Launch 2 requests, and dequeue and launch another each time one completes.
I'd suggest throttling your requests so you only have a few (4?) outstanding at any given time. You're probably seeing the result of multiple requests being queued and timing out before your code can handle them all. Just a gess though. We have an ajax library that has built-in throttling and queues the requests so we only have 4 outstanding at any one time and don't see any problems. We routinely q lots per page.
Your code looks like it's put together using the constructor pattern. Are you invoking it with the new operator like var foo = new Ajax(...) in your calling code? Or are you just calling it directly like var foo = Ajax(...) ?
If the latter, you're likely overwriting state on your later calls. It looks like it's designed to be called to create an object, on which the get/post methods are called. This could be your problem if you're "calling it within a loop" as you say.
Is it possible to get the progress of an XMLHttpRequest (bytes uploaded, bytes downloaded)?
This would be useful to show a progress bar when the user is uploading a large file. The standard API doesn't seem to support it, but maybe there's some non-standard extension in any of the browsers out there? It seems like a pretty obvious feature to have after all, since the client knows how many bytes were uploaded/downloaded.
note: I'm aware of the "poll the server for progress" alternative (it's what I'm doing right now). the main problem with this (other than the complicated server-side code) is that typically, while uploading a big file, the user's connection is completely hosed, because most ISPs offer poor upstream. So making extra requests is not as responsive as I'd hoped. I was hoping there'd be a way (maybe non-standard) to get this information, which the browser has at all times.
For the bytes uploaded it is quite easy. Just monitor the xhr.upload.onprogress event. The browser knows the size of the files it has to upload and the size of the uploaded data, so it can provide the progress info.
For the bytes downloaded (when getting the info with xhr.responseText), it is a little bit more difficult, because the browser doesn't know how many bytes will be sent in the server request. The only thing that the browser knows in this case is the size of the bytes it is receiving.
There is a solution for this, it's sufficient to set a Content-Length header on the server script, in order to get the total size of the bytes the browser is going to receive.
For more go to https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Using_XMLHttpRequest .
Example:
My server script reads a zip file (it takes 5 seconds):
$filesize=filesize('test.zip');
header("Content-Length: " . $filesize); // set header length
// if the headers is not set then the evt.loaded will be 0
readfile('test.zip');
exit 0;
Now I can monitor the download process of the server script, because I know it's total length:
function updateProgress(evt)
{
if (evt.lengthComputable)
{ // evt.loaded the bytes the browser received
// evt.total the total bytes set by the header
// jQuery UI progress bar to show the progress on screen
var percentComplete = (evt.loaded / evt.total) * 100;
$('#progressbar').progressbar( "option", "value", percentComplete );
}
}
function sendreq(evt)
{
var req = new XMLHttpRequest();
$('#progressbar').progressbar();
req.onprogress = updateProgress;
req.open('GET', 'test.php', true);
req.onreadystatechange = function (aEvt) {
if (req.readyState == 4)
{
//run any callback here
}
};
req.send();
}
Firefox supports XHR download progress events.
EDIT 2021-07-08 10:30 PDT
The above link is dead. Doing a search on the Mozilla WebDev site turned up the following link:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/ProgressEvent
It describes how to use the progress event with XMLHttpRequest and provides an example. I've included the example below:
var progressBar = document.getElementById("p"),
client = new XMLHttpRequest()
client.open("GET", "magical-unicorns")
client.onprogress = function(pe) {
if(pe.lengthComputable) {
progressBar.max = pe.total
progressBar.value = pe.loaded
}
}
client.onloadend = function(pe) {
progressBar.value = pe.loaded
}
client.send()
I also found this link as well which is what I think the original link pointed to.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/XMLHttpRequest/progress_event
One of the most promising approaches seems to be opening a second communication channel back to the server to ask it how much of the transfer has been completed.
For the total uploaded there doesn't seem to be a way to handle that, but there's something similar to what you want for download. Once readyState is 3, you can periodically query responseText to get all the content downloaded so far as a String (this doesn't work in IE), up until all of it is available at which point it will transition to readyState 4. The total bytes downloaded at any given time will be equal to the total bytes in the string stored in responseText.
For a all or nothing approach to the upload question, since you have to pass a string for upload (and it's possible to determine the total bytes of that) the total bytes sent for readyState 0 and 1 will be 0, and the total for readyState 2 will be the total bytes in the string you passed in. The total bytes both sent and received in readyState 3 and 4 will be the sum of the bytes in the original string plus the total bytes in responseText.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<p id="demo">result</p>
<button type="button" onclick="get_post_ajax();">Change Content</button>
<script type="text/javascript">
function update_progress(e)
{
if (e.lengthComputable)
{
var percentage = Math.round((e.loaded/e.total)*100);
console.log("percent " + percentage + '%' );
}
else
{
console.log("Unable to compute progress information since the total size is unknown");
}
}
function transfer_complete(e){console.log("The transfer is complete.");}
function transfer_failed(e){console.log("An error occurred while transferring the file.");}
function transfer_canceled(e){console.log("The transfer has been canceled by the user.");}
function get_post_ajax()
{
var xhttp;
if (window.XMLHttpRequest){xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();}//code for modern browsers}
else{xhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");}// code for IE6, IE5
xhttp.onprogress = update_progress;
xhttp.addEventListener("load", transfer_complete, false);
xhttp.addEventListener("error", transfer_failed, false);
xhttp.addEventListener("abort", transfer_canceled, false);
xhttp.onreadystatechange = function()
{
if (xhttp.readyState == 4 && xhttp.status == 200)
{
document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = xhttp.responseText;
}
};
xhttp.open("GET", "http://it-tu.com/ajax_test.php", true);
xhttp.send();
}
</script>
</body>
</html>
If you have access to your apache install and trust third-party code, you can use the apache upload progress module (if you use apache; there's also a nginx upload progress module).
Otherwise, you'd have to write a script that you can hit out of band to request the status of the file (checking the filesize of the tmp file for instance).
There's some work going on in firefox 3 I believe to add upload progress support to the browser, but that's not going to get into all the browsers and be widely adopted for a while (more's the pity).
The only way to do that with pure javascript is to implement some kind of polling mechanism.
You will need to send ajax requests at fixed intervals (each 5 seconds for example) to get the number of bytes received by the server.
A more efficient way would be to use flash. The flex component FileReference dispatchs periodically a 'progress' event holding the number of bytes already uploaded.
If you need to stick with javascript, bridges are available between actionscript and javascript.
The good news is that this work has been already done for you :)
swfupload
This library allows to register a javascript handler on the flash progress event.
This solution has the hudge advantage of not requiring aditionnal resources on the server side.