[Solved] Why this mmediately invoked functions is not working properly

Question

First off, I notice two problems:

You have a syntax error in the parameter list to $.post
You probably don’t want to do this: setTimeout(chatcom_load_one(id), 1000);

Here’s an updated version of your code with these errors fixed:

function chat_com_one(id) {

    $('#chatcom').show('fast');
    (function chatcom_load_one(id) {
        $.post('sendchat2.php', {
            option: 'chatcom_load_one',
            tocom: id
        }, function (data) {
            $('#chatcom #commid #commidwin').html(data);
            setTimeout(function () {
                chatcom_load_one(id);
            }, 1000);
        });
    }());

    $('#chatcom_send').click(function () {
        var text = document.getElementById('chatcom_text').value;
        $.post('sendchat2.php', {
            option: 'chat_com_send_one',
            text: text,
            tocom: id
        },
        function (data) {
            document.getElementById('chatcom_text').value="";
        });
    });
}

Also, since you’re using jQuery, you can simplify document.getElementById.... Another updated version (with some more changes to make it more readable):

function chat_com_one(id) {
    $('#chatcom').show('fast');

    (function chatcom_load_one(id) {
        $.post('sendchat2.php', {
            option: 'chatcom_load_one',
            tocom: id
        }, function (data) {
            $('#commidwin').html(data);
            setTimeout(function () {
                chatcom_load_one(id);
            }, 1000);
        });
    }(id));

    $('#chatcom_send').click(function () {
        var text = $('#chatcom_text').val();
        $.post('sendchat2.php', {
            option: 'chat_com_send_one',
            text: text,
            tocom: id
        },
        function (data) {
            $('#chatcom_text').val('');
        });
    });
}

These are just a few cleanups, there may be others.

Edit:

Added devnull69’s insight to my final updated code. Hopefully it’s useful (accept his answer if this was the problem).

Edit: Other notes

Why are you doing $.post in chatcom_load_one? It would make much more sense as a $.get, and the query parameters would still be sent. It’s not really a problem per se, but it’s bad style. This should probably be in a file called getchat.php or something instead of doing what I expect is looking for the text parameter.

Also, I don’t know the implementation of sendchat2.php, but you should probably reduce the timeout. Try something like 250ms or so. That’s not going to overload the server and it’ll improve response time.

Accepted Answer