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XMLHttpRequest: responseXML property

The XMLHttpRequest.responseXML read-only property returns a Document containing the HTML or XML retrieved by the request; or null if the request was unsuccessful, has not yet been sent, or if the data can't be parsed as XML or HTML.

Note: The name responseXML is an artifact of this property's history; it works for both HTML and XML.

Usually, the response is parsed as "text/xml". If the responseType is set to "document" and the request was made asynchronously, instead the response is parsed as "text/html". responseXML is null for any other types of data, as well as for data: URLs.

If the server doesn't specify the Content-Type as "text/xml" or "application/xml", you can use XMLHttpRequest.overrideMimeType() to parse it as XML anyway.

This property isn't available to workers.

Value

A Document from parsing the XML or HTML received using XMLHttpRequest, or null if no data was received or if the data is not XML/HTML.

Exceptions

InvalidStateError DOMException

Thrown if the responseType isn't either document or an empty string.

Examples

js

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

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

// Force the response to be parsed as XML
xhr.overrideMimeType("text/xml");

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

xhr.send();

Specifications

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
responseXML 1 12
1Before Firefox 51, an error parsing the received data added a <parsererror> node to the top of the Document and then returned the Document in whatever state it happens to be in. This was inconsistent with the specification. Starting with Firefox 51, this scenario now correctly returns null as per the spec.
7 ≤12.1 3 ≤37 18
4Before Firefox 51, an error parsing the received data added a <parsererror> node to the top of the Document and then returned the Document in whatever state it happens to be in. This was inconsistent with the specification. Starting with Firefox 51, this scenario now correctly returns null as per the spec.
≤12.1 1 1.0

See also

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