Question:

i've the following codes in coffeescript

getSection = (url) -> req = $.getJSON url return req.success (data) -> data.section

or,

getSection = (url) -> req = $.getJSON url req.success (data) -> data.section

i intended to return data.section for the function getSection. but it is always returning another object (probably the response/ajax object). how can I force to return the values in data.section from this inner function?

thanks in advance?

<a href="http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.getJSON/" rel="nofollow">$.getJSON</a> is an AJAX call and <strong>A</strong> stands for <strong>asynchronous</strong> so getSection will return before $.getJSON gets its response back from the server. Basically, you can't get getSection to return data.section unless you want to replace $.getJSON with <a href="http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.ajax/" rel="nofollow">$.ajax</a> and do a synchronous (i.e. non-asynchronous) call; however, synchronous calls are evil and are being deprecated so you shouldn't use them.

The usual solution is to pass a callback to getSection:

getSection = (url, callback) -> req = $.getJSON url req.success (data) -> callback(data.section)

and then you put your logic in callback rather than trying to do something with the getSection return value.

Your getSection is returning req because that's what <a href="http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.ajax/#jqXHR" rel="nofollow">req.success</a> returns and CoffeeScript functions return their final value.