Programmatic POST Requests with JavaScript: A Functional Form Emulator

Throughout the previous part of the series, I covered in detail these functions, so I won’t stop long explaining what they do. Essentially, the first function is responsible for instantiating XmlHttpRequest objects each time it’s invoked, while the second one makes http requests to a given server. Retaking the program’s flow, they’re listed below:

// function getXMLHTTPObject

function getXMLHTTPObject(){

    //instantiate new XMLHttpRequest object

    var objhttp=(window.XMLHttpRequest)?new XMLHttpRequest():new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLHTTP');

    if(!objhttp){return};

    // assign event handler

    objhttp.onreadystatechange=displayStatus;

    // return XMLHttpRequest object

    return objhttp;

}

// function sendRequest

function sendRequest(url,data,method,mode,header){

    // set default values

    if(!url){url='default_url.htm'};

    if(!data){data='defaultdata=defaultvalue'};

    if(!method){method='post'};

    if(!mode){mode=true};

    if(!header){header='Content-Type:application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8'};

    // get XMLHttpRequest object

    objhttp=getXMLHTTPObject();

    // open socket connection

    objhttp.open(method,url,mode);

    // set http header

    objhttp.setRequestHeader(header.split(':')[0],header.split(':')[1]);

    // send data

    objhttp.send(data);

}

As I said before, the above functions implement actually the core logic of the program, because they provide the required functionality to use cross-browser XmlHttpRequest objects, and send http requests to a specific host as well. However, I explained previously that the program was capable of performing additional tasks, such as getting data about the form to be emulated. Thus, over the next section, I’ll define the functions tasked with obtaining the form’s source code, as well as its action attribute along with its field names.