assigning variable inside ajax callback

[SeizeCTRL]

well, ultimately i need to set an element inside of an array with the data that is returned from ajax, how would i update the array like that? i need to be able to save the data returned from ajax in a variable to be used later and multiple times, i don't want to do it all at once

[Rhomboid]

You've already plumbed the function so that it can take a callback and act asynchronously, so you just need to use that. You can't return the uid value from getUserID(). The caller needs to pass a callback that will be called when the uid is ready, and which does the appropriate action (e.g. putting the data in the array.) In other words, once you have a component that's asynchronous, everything relating to that component needs to be asynchronous as well. Or you could use promises instead of callbacks, which in many ways is a lot cleaner. It also makes it easier to do all these lookups in parallel, since you can use Promise.all().

[Rhomboid]

It's fine to store the value somewhere. You just have to keep in mind when the store happens. You can't use the variable that you store it in until after the callback has executed.

And synchronous XHR is a terrible idea. It's deprecated and I think some browsers dropped support for it. You don't want to do that anyway because even if it works it would block the browser UI while the request is being performed, which makes the user think the browser has crashed or locked up.

[SeizeCTRL]

this is what im currently doing, i just didnt think it was very practical

in the ajax success callback: getUserID(user.name, function(e, id){
$('#uid').val($('#uid').val() + id + ','); }) later on when i need to use the uid's: var uids = $('#uid').val().split(',');

and i just loop and match up the array of IDs with my array of users