👀 Views: 388 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-10-17

jQuery AJAX refactoring legacy-code JavaScript

I'm working on a personal project and I've been struggling with this for a few days now and could really use some help. This might be a silly question, but I'm trying to figure out While refactoring a legacy application that heavily relies on jQuery for front-end interactions and API calls, I've encountered some challenges with maintaining the existing functionality without introducing regressions. The application leverages jQuery's AJAX methods to fetch data and update the UI dynamically. Here's a snippet of the current implementation: ```javascript function fetchData() { $.ajax({ url: '/api/data', method: 'GET', success: function(data) { $('#dataContainer').html(data); }, error: function(xhr, status, error) { console.error('AJAX error:', status, error); } }); } ``` My goal is to improve readability and maintainability. One approach I considered is to encapsulate AJAX calls into a utility function. Here's an example of what I’m aiming for: ```javascript function apiGet(url) { return $.ajax({ url: url, method: 'GET' }); } function updateData() { apiGet('/api/data') .done(function(data) { $('#dataContainer').html(data); }) .fail(function(xhr, status, error) { console.error('AJAX error:', status, error); }); } ``` The utility approach definitely makes the code cleaner, but I worry about potential side effects with error handling, especially since the legacy app has multiple places where similar AJAX calls are made. Should I create a centralized error handling mechanism for these utility functions? Furthermore, I’m considering moving towards using Promises or even async/await for better flow control, but that might lead to compatibility issues with older clients that still use the application. Has anyone gone through a similar refactoring process? How did you tackle these concerns, especially with ensuring backward compatibility? Any insights into best practices for handling AJAX calls in a jQuery-heavy environment would be greatly appreciated. This is happening in both development and production on Linux. I'm open to any suggestions. The stack includes Javascript and several other technologies. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I'm on Windows 10 using the latest version of Javascript. Has anyone else encountered this? I'm using Javascript 3.11 in this project. Is there a simpler solution I'm overlooking?