Ajax Tutorial: Request a web page containing URL parameters using AJAX

The following code can be used to make a request to an external web page by passing the URL parameters using AJAX

<html>
<head>
<title>Request External Web Page containing parameters using Ajax</title>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
function makeRequest(url, containerid, parameters) {
   http_request = false;
   if (window.XMLHttpRequest) { // Mozilla, Safari,...
    http_request = new XMLHttpRequest();
    if (http_request.overrideMimeType) {
      // set type accordingly to anticipated content type
      //http_request.overrideMimeType('text/xml');
      http_request.overrideMimeType('text/html');
    }
   } else if (window.ActiveXObject) { // IE
    try {
      http_request = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
    } catch (e) {
      try {
          http_request = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
      } catch (e) {}
    }
   }
   if (!http_request) {
    alert('Cannot create XMLHTTP instance');
    return false;
   }
   http_request.onreadystatechange = alertContents;
   http_request.open('GET', url + parameters, true);
   http_request.send(null);
}

function alertContents() {
   if (http_request.readyState == 4) {
    if (http_request.status == 200) {
      result = http_request.responseText;
      document.getElementById('content').innerHTML = result;
    } else {
      alert('There was a problem with the request.');
    }
   }
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<a href="javascript: makeRequest('http://www.expertsforge.com/fullstory.asp','content','?topicid=8');">Request Page</a>
<div id="content"></div>
</body>
</html>