What's the difference between 'state' and 'status' in function name?

Question

readyState
statusText
onreadystatechange
window.status

What's the difference between 'state' and 'status' in English ?

Answer 1

Not much. I would tend to say state refers to more detailed information, but that's subjective.

For these:

XMLHttpRequest.readyState - one of 5 possible states for a request
XMLHttpRequest.statusText - The text equivalent of the HTTP response status (e.g. "200 OK")
XMLHttpRequest.onreadystatechange - function to call when readyState changes
window.status - status bar text (typically bottom left of window)

Answer 2

They are quite similar, as they both signify the current properties of something. There is however a bit of a difference in how they are used:

A state is usually a single propery with some specific possible values. The readyState for example will cycle through some specific predefined values when a page loads.

The status is usually a collection of properties, or a description of them. The window.status property for example is just the text that is displayed in the status bar, and that can descibe any aspect of the content.