Web Applications and HTTP Status Codes...

[goatslayer]

Is it possible/do web applications developers ever purposely set/send out a HTTP Status Code, so that it can be better hanled client side by pages utilizing ajax?

[PeejAvery]

I'm slightly confused by your question. Do you mean the following?

objXML.status = 200;

Sometimes, to make pages smoothly operate, I ignore the status altogether. As long as the readyState is set, most times it will be without error.

[goatslayer]

Yea, for example error handling, you might handle an exception in your backend code which your javascript doesn't have full visibility of, therefore with your exception you might also send a status code, so that the javascript can be,

if (xmlhttp.status == mystatus) 
{ 
   document.findelementbyid("foo").value="there has been some error"; 
}

It seems sensible, but I don't know if it can be done, or if anyone does it, or if there is any need to.

[PeejAvery]

Well, why don't you build a simple AJAX object, and try to set the status. Personally, I don't really find use for it because the status applies to the server page status. Why would you need more than...

if (objXML.status == 200) {alert("Page found.");}
...
else if (objXML.status == 403) {alert("Access denied.");}
else if (objXML.status == 404) {alert("URL not found.");}
...
else {alert("status is " + request.status);}