freeCodeCamp: "ReferenceError: url is not defined" in challenge "Post Data with the JavaScript XMLHttpRequest Method"

Challenge post-data-with-the-javascript-xmlhttprequest-method has an issue. User Agent is: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_11_6) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/56.0.2924.87 Safari/537.36.

The code below actually yields a ReferenceError: url is not defined on the console. Yet, all tests are passing. Where is the variable url supposed to come from? Apologies, if this is work in progress, but I thought I’d point it out. Feel free to rope me in for fixing this—dev environment is all set up 😀



<script>
  document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded',function(){
    document.getElementById('sendMessage').onclick=function(){
      var userName=document.getElementById('name').value;
      // Add your code below this line
      req=new XMLHttpRequest();
      try {
        req.open("POST",url,true);
      }
      catch (e) {
        console.log(e);
      }
      req.setRequestHeader('Content-Type','text/plain');
      req.onreadystatechange=function(){
        if(req.readyState==4 && req.status==200){
          document.getElementsByClassName('message')[0].innerHTML=req.responseText;
        }
      };
      req.send(userName);
      
      // Add your code above this line
    };
  });
</script>
<style>
  body {
    text-align: center;
    font-family: "Helvetica", sans-serif;
  }
  h1 {
    font-size: 2em;
    font-weight: bold;
  }
  .box {
    border-radius: 5px;
    background-color: #eee;
    padding: 20px 5px;
  }
  button {
    color: white;
    background-color: #4791d0;
    border-radius: 5px;
    border: 1px solid #4791d0;
    padding: 5px 10px 8px 10px;
  }
  button:hover {
    background-color: #0F5897;
    border: 1px solid #0F5897;
  }
</style>
<h1>Cat Friends</h1> 
<p class="message box">
  Reply from Server will be here
</p>
<p>
  <label for="name">Your name:
    <input type="text" id="name"/>
  </label>
  <button id="sendMessage">
    Send Message
  </button>
</p>

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 7 years ago
Reactions: 1
Comments: 15 (8 by maintainers)

Commits related to this issue

Fix "ReferenceError: url is not defined" in challenge I fix the challenge because issue #14002 - The `url` variable is set to external resource `https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts` - I rep... — committed to alfredojry/freeCodeCamp by alfredojry 5 years ago
Fix "ReferenceError: url is not defined" in challenge (#35415) * Fix "ReferenceError: url is not defined" in challenge I fix the challenge because issue #14002 - The `url` variable is set to ext... — committed to RandellDawson/freeCodeCamp by alfredojry 5 years ago

Most upvoted comments

The following code fixes this I think. I don’t think the people at jsonplaceholder.com will mind, it’s their reason to be after all.

<script>
  document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() {
    document.getElementById('sendMessage').onclick = function() {
      var userName=document.getElementById('name').value;

      // Add your code below this line

      const url = 'https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts';
      const messageBoard = document.getElementsByClassName('message')[0];

      const xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
      xhr.open('POST', url, true);
      xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/json; charset=UTF-8");
      xhr.onreadystatechange = function() {
        if(xhr.readyState === 4 && xhr.status === 201) {
          const serverResponse = JSON.parse(xhr.response);
          messageBoard.textContent = `${serverResponse.userName} ${serverResponse.suffix}`;
        }
      }
      const body = JSON.stringify({ userName: userName, suffix: " loves cats!" });
      xhr.send(body);

      // Add your code above this line
    };
  });
</script>

Note the use of .textContent instead of .innerHTML, a better practice when you can use it. Also checking for HTTP status of 201 instead of 200. Probably endpoint dependent but when you are POSTing there’s a good chance you’ll be creating a resource on the server and as is the case with jsonplaceholder you’ll get something other than 200 back.

HarplingeTom on Oct 31, 2018

Can this be reopened, because it was never changed? The instructions need to be updated, because currently, the instructions state:

Update the code to create and send a “POST” request. Then enter your name in input box and click “Send Message”. Your AJAX function will replace “Reply from Server will be here.” with the reply of the server. In this case, it is your name appended with " loves cats".

On the forum we are getting people wondering why when they type in their name (i.e. “John”) and click the Send Message button, that the “Reply from Server will be here.” message is not replaced with “John loves cats.”

RandellDawson on Aug 28, 2018

Will do, @QuincyLarson

stephanmax on Mar 22, 2017