XMLHttpRequest.responseXML

The XMLHttpRequest.responseXML property is a read-only value which 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 retrieved data can't be correctly parsed as XML or HTML. The response is parsed as if it were a "text/xml" stream. When the responseType is set to "document" and the request has been made asynchronously, the response is parsed as a "text/html" stream. responseXML is null for any other types of data, as well as for data: URLs.

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

Syntax

var data = XMLHttpRequest.responseXML;

Value

A Document containing the nodes resulting from parsing XML or HTML received using XMLHttpRequest, or null if no data has been received or the data is not of the correct type.

Exceptions

InvalidStateError

The responseType isn't either "document" or an empty string (either of which indicates that the received data is XML or HTML).

Example

var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open('GET', '/server', true);

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

// overrideMimeType() can be used to force the response to be parsed as XML
xhr.overrideMimeType('text/xml');

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

xhr.send(null);

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
XMLHttpRequest	Living Standard	WHATWG living standard

Browser compatibility

[1] Prior to 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.

See also

• XMLHttpRequest
• XMLHttpRequest.response
• XMLHttpRequest.responseType