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XMLHttpRequest.response

The XMLHttpRequest response property returns the response's body content as an ArrayBuffer, Blob, Document, JavaScript Object, or DOMString, depending on the value of the request's responseType property.

Syntax

var body = XMLHttpRequest.response;

Value

An appropriate object based on the value of responseType. You may attempt to request the data be provided in a specific format by setting the value of responseType after calling open() to initialize the request but before calling send() to send the request to the server.

The value is null if the request is not yet complete or was unsuccessful, with the exception that when reading text data using a responseType of "text" or the empty string (""), the response can contain the response so far while the request is still in the LOADING readyState (3).

The response types are described below.

Value	Description
`""`	An empty `responseType` string is treated the same as `"text"`, the default type (therefore, as a `DOMString`.
`"arraybuffer"`	The `response` is a JavaScript `ArrayBuffer` containing binary data.
`"blob"`	The `response` is a `Blob` object containing the binary data.
`"document"`	The `response` is an HTML `Document` or XML `XMLDocument`, as appropriate based on the MIME type of the received data. See HTML in XMLHttpRequest to learn more about using XHR to fetch HTML content.
`"json"`	The `response` is a JavaScript object created by parsing the contents of received data as JSON.
`"text"`	The `response` is text in a `DOMString` object.
`"moz-chunked-arraybuffer"`	Similar to `"arraybuffer"`, but the data is received in a stream. When using this response type, the value in `response` is only available in the handler for the `progress` event, and only contains the data received since the last `progress` event, rather than the cumulative data received since the request was sent. Accessing `response` during a `progress` event returns the data received so far. Outside the `progress` event handler, the value of `response` is always `null`.
`"ms-stream"`	The `response` is part of a streaming download; this response type is only allowed for download requests, and is only supported by Internet Explorer.

Example

This example presents a function, load(), which loads and processes a page from the server. It works by creating an XMLHttpRequest object and creating a listener for readystatechange events such that that when readyState changes to DONE (4), the response is obtained and passed into the callback function provided to load().

The content is handled as raw text data (since nothing here is overriding the default responseType).

var url = 'somePage.html'; //A local page

function load(url, callback) {
  var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();

  xhr.onreadystatechange = function() {
    if (xhr.readyState === 4) {
      callback(xhr.response);
    }
  }

  xhr.open('GET', url, true);
  xhr.send('');
}

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
XMLHttpRequest	Living Standard	WHATWG living standard

Browser compatibilityUpdate compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari
Basic support	Yes	12	Yes	?	Yes	Yes