Ajax response while remote php runs - php

Question

i want to get data echoed in the remote php after i sent the main request and before i get the complete response.
the intent is to show "i am almost there - 5 items remaining" or similer...
This is my current js script:
function getdetails(){
$("div#urltable").fadeOut('fast');
$("div#ajaxLoading").fadeIn('fast');
var checkurl = $('input#remoteurl').attr('value');
if($("#checkBrokenLinks").prop('checked') == true){
var checkonline = 'check';
}
else {
var checkonline = 'skip';
}
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "ajax-outlink_checker.php",
data: {checkurl:checkurl, checkonline: checkonline}
}).always(function(data) {
var $response = $(data);
var whileRuningCount = $response.filter('#whileRuningCount').html();
$("div#whileRuningCount").fadeOut('fast');
$("div#whileRuningCount").fadeIn('fast');
$("div#whileRuningCount").html(whileRuningCount);
}).done(function(result) {
var $response=$(result);
var urltable = $response.filter('#urltable').html();
var whileRuningCount = $response.filter('#whileRuningCount').html();
$("div#ajaxLoading").fadeOut('fast');
$("div#urltable").fadeIn('fast');
$("div#urltable").html(urltable);
});
}
As you can see
i added .always() trying to grab the echo's the run in the php file.
but... i guess i missunderstand how to make it work and if .always
is even the way to go about it.
Any help would be most apreaciated.
Best regards, Sagive.

Answer 1

You'll need to make 2 separate ajax calls. 1 for the initial request, and then a second one repeated as often as needed to check for status updates. The action responder will need to update some variable for the status responder to check. How you communicate the status to the other responder is up to you. One method is to simply use a file. Your action responder will call handleaction() while the status responder will only call statuscheck():
<?php
function handleaction()
{
$actions_left = 0;
while ($actions_left > 0)
{
perform_action();
status_update(--$actions_left);
}
}
function status_update($remaining)
{
$filename = "/" . session_id() . "_action_status.txt";
$fh = fopen($filename, "w");
fputs($fh, $remaining);
fclose($fh);
}
function statuscheck()
{
$filename = "/" . session_id() . "_action_status.txt";
echo #file_get_contents($filename); // js treats empty response as 0.
}
?>

Answer 2

.always() is not for that. It just means that whether the request was success/done() or fail() run what is in that snippet.
If you are trying to show an "almost there.." message, a better way would be to have another async call to the server which polls every N seconds, looks at some data state in the server, (a flag maybe?) and based on that shows a message in the front end..