jQuery and fixing AJAX cache for GET calls

It will come to you very soon, if you are trying to develop any decent webapp or phonegap mobile app using jQuery. The problem is, if we have the same GET request multiple times, by default jQuery will cache the request. The end result is the response same as the first response!! Well, there is a setting in jQuery AJAX setup, where in we write cache:false and that should work. Well, depending upon how the API is written on the server side, this call might not work! There are many reasons as to why it may not work, one simple reason is, to understand, how jQuery behaves, when we set cache:false as below.

var apiURL = "my/api/server/URI";
$.ajax({
    url:apiURL,
    cache: false,
    success:function(result){
        //
    },
    error:function(data){           
        //            
    }   
});

Now, jQuery will append _={timestamp} to the GET parameters. Here is the official documentation of the same. The service call will fail, if this extra parameter is not handled properly. A little workarround, fixed this for me, which is appending the timestamp mannually by hand instead of setting cache: false in AJAX setup of jQuery. The modified code looks as this.

var timeStamp = new Date().getTime();
var apiURL = "my/api/server/URI/"+timeStamp;
$.ajax({
    url:apiURL,
    //cache: false,//not needed now
    success:function(result){
        //
    },
    error:function(data){           
        //            
    }   
});

Well, that worked for me as my API end point was not handling ‘_’(underscore) properly, but could handle the extra parameters.
Depending upon the situations, find a right place and add timestamp mannually, to fix the AJAX cache instead of setting it in the setup.

Happy Coding.