How to prevent a form from being submitted in an onsubmit client script with a getXML() function?

[Johannes Mweli]

Hi ServiceNow Community Developers

I have the following use case: I am in a scoped application. I am using the onsubmit client script that has the getXML() function. There are fields on the form that I am submitting that needs to be populated by the response of the getXML() function before the form can be submitted. The issue I am running into though is that since getXML() is async it does not wait for the response to come back from the server, it issues a call to the server and then goes ahead and submit the form before the response comes back. As a result of this behavior some fields are submitted without getting populated.

Would you guys please advise if there is a way I can overcome this. In other words is there a way to pause the form submission until the fields that needs to populated by the response  from getXML() function have been populated.

Kindly advise please

Thanks,

Johannes

[kaushal_snow]

Hi @Johannes Mweli ,

Yes , you can prevent a form from submitting until the fields populated by a server call via getXML() are filled. Because getXML() is asynchronous, you need to block the initial submission, wait for the response, then re submit once done. Here’s how:

function onSubmit() {
// If flag says validation done, allow submit
if (g_scratchpad._validated) {
g_scratchpad._validated = false; // reset if needed
return true;
}

// Otherwise, do async validation via GlideAjax
var ga = new GlideAjax('MyScriptInclude');
ga.addParam('sysparm_name', 'validateSomething');
ga.addParam('sysparm_some_field', g_form.getValue('some_field'));
ga.getXMLAnswer(function(answer) {
if (answer == 'true') {
// mark that validation passed
g_scratchpad._validated = true;
// re-submit form via saved action
var action = g_form.getActionName();
if (typeof g_form.orderNow !== 'undefined') {
g_form.orderNow();
} else {
g_form.submit(action);
}
} else {
g_form.addErrorMessage("Validation failed: please correct fields");
}
});

// prevent initial submit
return false;
}

Please note: getXMLWait() is synchronous and delays submission until server responds. But it's not supported in Service Portal and discouraged generally....

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