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XMLHttpRequest: responseText property

The read-only XMLHttpRequest property responseText returns the text received from a server following a request being sent.

Value

A string which contains either the textual data received using the XMLHttpRequest or null if the request failed or "" if the request has not yet been sent by calling send().

While handling an asynchronous request, the value of responseText always has the current content received from the server, even if it's incomplete because the data has not been completely received yet.

You know the entire content has been received when the value of readyState becomes XMLHttpRequest.DONE (4), and status becomes 200 ("OK").

Exceptions

InvalidStateError DOMException

Thrown if the XMLHttpRequest.responseType is not set to either the empty string or "text". Since the responseText property is only valid for text content, any other value is an error condition.

Examples

js

const xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open("GET", "/server", true);

// If specified, responseType must be empty string or "text"
xhr.responseType = "text";

xhr.onload = () => {
  if (xhr.readyState === xhr.DONE) {
    if (xhr.status === 200) {
      console.log(xhr.response);
      console.log(xhr.responseText);
    }
  }
};

xhr.send(null);

Specifications

Specification
XMLHttpRequest Standard
# the-responsetext-attribute

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile
Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari WebView Android Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet
responseText 1 12 1
5Before Internet Explorer 10, the value of XMLHttpRequest.responseText could be read only once the request was complete.
 8 1.2 4.4 18 4 10.1 1 1.0

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https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/XMLHttpRequest/responseText