JQuery function not executing on document load

Question

I am trying to build a simple social media website in which people get to make posts and comment on the postings (Kinda like facebook). In order to fetch the posts and the comments, I have created two simple PHP scripts that get me the results in a json format. I then created two functions in jquery, getPosts() and getComments() to ajax the results. On success, these functions clone() the html frame I have created for each post/comment object that is returned.

Here is my html frame:-

    <div class="KK-posts_feed">

            <div class="KK-post_frame" style="display:none;"> //This is the div that I clone() for postings

                <div class="KK-post_info_header">
                        <a class="KK-post_username"></a>    
                   </div>
                </div>

                <div class="KK-post_text"></div>

                <div class="KK-post_comment_thread" data-PID="">
                    <div class="KK-post_comment_box"> //This is the div that I clone for comments

                        <div class="KK-post_comment_user_info">
                            <a class="KK-post_comment_username"></a>
                        </div>
                        <div class="KK-post_comment_text"></div>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
        </div>

This is the getPosts() method to output the posts:-

    function getPosts(){  //This function gets the posts and clones the html for each post
        $.ajax({
        type : 'GET',
        url : 'fetchposts.php',
        dataType: 'json',
        error : function(){
            $('.dash_results_bar').html('<p class="KK-post_load_error">' + "Sorry, couldn't load posts at the moment. This maybe because we are facing downtime or because the databases are being updated." + ' <a href="#" class="KK-post_load_retry">Retry</a>' + "</p>");
        },
        success : function(data)
        {
         var posts = data.posts;

            if(posts.length)
            {
                $('.KK-post_frame:first').css("display", "block");
                $(posts).each(function(index, value){
                    $('.KK-post_frame:first')
                    .clone(true)
                    .attr('id', (value.post_id))
                    .find('.KK-post_username').html(value.user_fullname)
                    .end()
                    .find('.KK-post_text').html(value.post_text)
                    .end()
                    .find('.KK-post_comment_thread').attr('data-PID', value.post_id)
                    .end()
                    .appendTo('.KK-posts_feed');
                });
                $('.KK-post_frame:first').css("display", "none");
            }
        }   
    });
}

This is the getComments() method to output the comments under each post:-

function getComments(){
        $('.KK-post_comment_thread').each(function(){ // I run this method for each comment thread div inside each of my posts div
        var pid = $(this).attr('data-PID'); // PID is the 'post id' that I use, to identify each comment thread div separately.
        var self = this;
        $.ajax({
            type : 'POST',
            url : 'fetchcomments.php',
            data : 'pid='+pid, // I send the post id to the php script which returns the comments for the particular post in the form of json objects
            error : function(){
                $(self).html('<p class="KK-post_comment_load_error">' + "Sorry, couldn't load comments at the moment." + ' <a class="KK-post_comment_load_retry" href="#">Retry</a>' + "</p>");
            },
            success : function(data){
                var comments = data.comments;

                if(comments.length)
                {
                    $('.KK-post_comment_box:first').css('display', 'block');
                    $(comments).each(function(index, value){
                        $('.KK-post_comment_box:first')
                        .clone(true)
                        .attr('id', value.comment_id)
                        .find('.KK-post_comment_username').html(value.user_fullname)
                        .end()
                        .find('.KK-post_comment_text').html(value.comment_text)
                        .end()
                        .appendTo(self);
                    });
                    $('.KK-post_comment_box:first').css('display', 'none');
                }
            }   
        });

    });
}

This is how I execute the above two functions :-

$('document').ready(function(){

     $.when(getPosts()).done(function(){

          getComments();
     });

});

While the getPosts() method executes perfectly and outputs the posts, the getComments() method either doesn't execute or doesn't show any results. I cant say for sure because everytime I refresh the page, I only get the postings and not the comments. Also I checked my console but did not find any errors with the script. The getComments() method worked perfectly well when I executed it via the click event handler like $('button').click(function(){ getComments(); }); . Therefore, I know that both my methods are working fine, its just that I am not able to execute them one after the other on page load. Can anybody help me with this peculiar problem?

Answer 1

Your getPosts() function doesn't return anything, so you're passing undefined to $.when() .

You need to return what's returned from $.ajax() :

function getPosts(){  //This function gets the posts and clones the html for each post
    return $.ajax({
      // ...