The Web Application Hacker’s Handbook Discovering and Exploiting Security Flaws

action to the server and updating the “Your basket contains X items” message

at the top of the screen. The page itself is not reloaded, resulting in a much

smoother and more satisfying experience for the user.

Ajax is implemented using the 

XMLHttpRequest

object. This object comes in

several forms depending on the browser, but these all function in fundamen-

tally the same way. The following is a simple example of using Ajax within

Internet Explorer to issue an asynchronous request and process its response:



One very important proviso affecting the use of 

XMLHttpRequest

is that it