Process a continuous stream of JSON

Question

The (now defunct) page http://stream.twitter.com/1/statuses/sample.json used to return a continuous and endless stream of JSON data.

I\'d like to process it using jQ

Answer 1

A web page at a very fundamental level can't keep a live/running connection to a server. Web browser sends a request to the server. Server sends a response (the HTML and more) back to the client (web browser). Think of this as a stateless model - no connection is ever kept alive after the request and response have been completed.

Therefore, you have to do it yourself. You have to invoke additional, periodic requests from the client-side.

One way would be to periodically call your AJAX/GET functionality via setInterval() function. For example:

setInterval(function() {

    $.ajax({
      url: "mydata/get",
      success: function(){
        // update content.
      }
    });

}, 5000);

This will fire off an AJAX request to mydata/get (or whatever URL you want to use) every 5 seconds.