Javascript alert/delay confusion

[dsloan]

This problem is very similar to that experienced in http://www.thescripts.com/forum/thread147783.html, but the solution there doesn't seem to apply here.

I have a function which works fine with the alert call in place below, but a delay (using another function defined elsewhere, which does work by the way) doesn't. Similarly if no delay is put in place it fails to complete the next line. It certainly appears that a value hasn't been finalised at that point, but I'm confused why a delay won't work. If I click the alert box immediately (i.e. a delay of 1-2 seconds) it works.

function loadProperties() {
    new Ajax.Updater('property_div', baseUrl+'/property/ajaxCorrespondenceProperties', {
        method:'post', postBody:'town_id='+$F('town_id')
    });

    //alert("setting property selection");
    //pause(5000);

    townId = document.getElementById('town_id').value;
    propertyId = document.getElementById('property_id').value;
}

Any ideas?
Diarmid

[acoder]

The most likely cause is that the response is not yet ready because the Ajax call is asynchronous. Move the statements to an onComplete event handler or when the readyState is 4 and the status is 200.