requests-xhr

XHR

XHR (XMLHttpRequest) is used throughout the project for historic reasons, but should be replaced with modern API endpoints where possible. So do not implement new features with XHR! The following is just documentation to understand what exists :)

We used XHR for information transferred from the server to the client which is not a complete new page but javascript-initiated. For example, the Update-Übersicht on the Dashboard was loaded by an XHR that gets a json file with the information of the updates. The javascript was found in /client/src/activity.js, and it called XHR endpoints like http://foodsharing.de/xhrapp.php?app=basket&m=infobar.

This requests an answer by /src/Entrypoint/XhrAppController.php which in turn calls the correct php file based on the options that are given after the ? in the url. For example, the activity.js requests were answered by /src/Modules/Activity/ActivityXhr.php. In this example, the database was queried for information via ActivityModel.php which in turn used the /src/Modules/Activity/ActivityGateway.php.

There are a two mostly identical XHR endpoints - /xhr.php and /xhrapp.php. Nowadays, those are handled by XhrController.php and XhrAppController.php respectively.

XHR-request answers contain a status and data and ? and always sends the HTTP status 200. So errors are not recognizable by the HTTP status, but by a custom status in the returned json response.