Trying to add delay to jQuery AJAX request

Question

I am trying to delay an AJAX request so that it is sent out 2-3 seconds after the LAST keyup of an input cell.
So far I have managed to delay the requests, but after 2-3 sec

Answer 1

I like the Molle's answer But I would to further improve the performance

var ajaxRequest2;  // The variable that makes Ajax possible!
function getAjaxObject()
{
                try{
                  // Opera 8.0+, Firefox, Safari
                  ajaxRequest2 = new XMLHttpRequest();
                }catch (e){
                  // Internet Explorer Browsers
                  try{
                     ajaxRequest2 = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
                  }catch (e) {
                     try{
                    ajaxRequest2 = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
                     }catch (e){
                    // Something went wrong
                    alert("Browser error!");
                   // return false;
                     }
                  }
                }
  return ajaxRequest2;


 }
   getAjaxObject();

    function ajaxSearchRequest($type){



               if(typeof ajaxRequest2 =="undefined" || ajaxRequest2 == false)
                {
                  return;
                }
               ajaxRequest2.abort();

                ajaxRequest2.onreadystatechange = function(){
                  if(ajaxRequest2.readyState == 4){

                        $result = ajaxRequest2.responseText;
                        $('#resultcontainer').html($result);

                    }}


                var searchterm = document.getElementById($type).value;


                var queryString ="?searchterm=" + searchterm +"&type=" +$type;


                if(searchterm !== ""){

                ajaxRequest2.open("GET", "searchrequest.php" + 
                                 queryString, true);
                ajaxRequest2.send(null);
                }
        }

This change will abort an on going ajax request and send a fresh request. It is helpful when you

Typed-> waited 4 sec ->request sent ->typed again (response not received) ->waited 4 second->another request fires