Execute a javascript function in Asynchronous mode

Question

We have AJAX calls to hit a URL. Do we have option to run/execute JavaScript function in Asynchronous mode?

Note: setTimeout() will execute that function after some seconds but still that will execute in Synchronous mode.

Answer 1

No. JavaScript runs in a single thread per page.

You want HTML5 Web Workers . There's a good introduction on HTML5 Rocks.

However, the Google Gears plugin provides a WorkerPool :

WorkerPool API

The WorkerPool API allows web applications to run JavaScript code in the background, without blocking the main page's script execution.

There's also a proposal by the Gears team to add this to HTML5.

Answer 2

Most modern browsers implement JavaScript Web Workers, they provide a simple way to run scripts in background threads.

Check the following articles:

• Computing with JavaScript Web Workers
• Using web workers
• Web Worker Recommendation
• SHA-1 Computation using Web Workers (demo)