235849 - Need doc on how to handle network errors from XMLHttpRequest()

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Documentation Graveyard :: Web Developer, defect)

Description

[Chuck Musser]

User-Agent:       
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040206 Firefox/0.8

I can't find find any information on how to handle network errors that result
from using XMLHttpRequest. Handling HTTP-related errors (file not found, etc) 
is straightforward, but I have not succeeded in learning how to handle
situations like "host unreachable", "hostname not found", "connection refused"
and the like. I've looked in the xmlextras web page, checked out the test cases,
browsed related IDL files, looked on XULPlanet and ran some experiments on my
machine. Can't figure it out.

Here's the deal: I'm willing to write a tutorial, sample code and maybe some
test cases, but I'm stuck. Is there a developer I can collaborate with?

Any resemblance between this bug and a sly attempt at getting help with my
project is purely coincidental. ;-)

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Read the various sources of information scattered around the Internet.
2. Feel blood pressure rise with the number of interface definitions encountered
3. Realize that header and IDL files will never give you a good grounding on the
theory or practical usage of any given interface.

Actual Results:  
Head hit keyboard. Actual sound: thunk.

Expected Results:  
Read a nice tutorial with well commented code samples that can be quickly
adapted to a project.

Documents or no, there is a bug in XMLHttpRequest (218236) that prevents the
onerror handler from being called. I can write documentation, but the bug blocks
writing and verifying testcases and examples.

Comment 1

[Alex Vincent [:WeirdAl]]

Mr. Musser, I wrote a <serverpost/> element for XUL which used XMLHttpRequest
significantly.  Care to collaborate with me?

Comment 2

[Florian Scholz (Open Web Docs)]

This bug has been buried in the graveyard and has not been updated in over 5 years. It is probably safe to assume that it will never be fixed, so resolving as WONTFIX.

Please file new documentation issues against MDN in the "Developer Documentation" product.