I want to submit form and show message about result. update_records initializes alert_message to error message. If success I expect that its value is changed. Than update_records outputs message. But the function always alerts "Error submitting form". What is wrong with this?

The code follows:

  function update_records(form_name) {
    var options = {
      async: false,
      alert_message: "Error submitting form",
      success: function(message) {
        this.alert_message = message;
      }
    };
    $('#' + form_name).ajaxSubmit(options);
    alert(options.alert_message);
  }

I am newbie in Javascript/JSon/Jquery and I suspect that I misunderstand some basics of mentioned technologies.

UPDATE:

I specified "async:false" to make execution synchronous (Is it correct?)

I also tried to insert delay between following two lines:

$('#' + form_name).ajaxSubmit(options);
pausecomp(1000); // inserted pause
alert(options.alert_message);

It also does not resolve the issue Function fo pousecomp follows:

  function pausecomp(millis)
  {
    var date = new Date();
    var curDate = null;
    do { curDate = new Date(); }
    while(curDate-date < millis);
  }