Who gets the callback when onreadystatechange is triggered in a single-threaded JavaScript environment?

Having recently delved into the world of JavaScript, I've come across the fact that it is single-threaded. My initial assumption was that when making an asynchronous request, a separate thread would be started to monitor the server's response. However, as I've learned, this approach doesn't work in JavaScript. I'm now wondering if there is some built-in mechanism that stores all listeners and executes them based on certain conditions they've "agreed" to (onreadystatechange).

I realize that my previous thinking may be completely off base. If anyone can provide some guidance or clarification, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Answer №1

Even though JavaScript execution is single-threaded, there could be multiple threads used by the underlying engine. This concept is further explained in this resource.

For instance, while an HTTP request may have its own thread within the browser, any resulting events are placed in a queue for the JS task scheduler. Once the current script finishes running, the appropriate event handler like onreadystatechange will be invoked.

Answer №2

Each browser has its own way of handling the XHR object - for example, IE uses ActiveX while FF uses XMLHttpRequest. Although there are attempts in HTML5 to standardize this with the introduction of the XHR2 object, widespread support is still lacking. This means that implementation varies across browsers, some using threads and others different methods. While JavaScript is generally single-threaded, asynchronous programming is still possible without manual thread creation.

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