Cross Domain JSONP XML Response

Question

I am making a api cross domain request using JSONP and the external server returns me result in XML, below is my code:

$.ajax({
    type: "Get",
    url: "http://domain.com/function?Data=1234567890",
    xhrFields: {withCredentials: true},
    dataType: "JSONP text xml",
    contentType: "application/xml",
    cache: false,
    success: function(xml)
    {
    alert($(this).find('ResponseStatus').text());
    }
});

it returns me a xml but along with that it generates an error saying "Unexpected token <" which unfortunately stops my processing and i dont get an alert message. Any idea?

Best

I really hope that isn't your code and that something has gone horribly wrong with a copy and paste... — PerryW
– PerryW, Commented Jun 24, 2014 at 6:12
Before we look at your code, there are bigger issues that you have to address. As a general rule, you cannot parse xml using jsonp. This is explained far better than I could do here stackoverflow.com/questions/10068963/… (please consider giving the author that put that together a +1). You'll see though that there are potential workarounds but, as @jmort253 points out, if you have that much control on the output of the server, you'd be better off formatting it as JSON to start off with — PerryW
– PerryW, Commented Jun 25, 2014 at 1:15
If I were in your place and I couldn't do anything with the output format, I'd probably look at sticking a few lines of PHP or Python (or your weapon of choice) on my web server to act as a proxy. — PerryW
– PerryW, Commented Jun 25, 2014 at 1:19

PerryW · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-25 03:07:51Z

12

As mentioned in the comments above, cross domain xml from javascript is a no-no unless you have control over the application that is spitting out the XML and can use a formatting trick to 'fool' the script into parsing it as JSON. If you can do that though, the question would have to be why not just format as JSON in the first place? So... Options

Format the output from the application for handling with JSONP. Assuming that you can't do that in your case then...
Use a local proxy on your webserver. There are plenty of simple proxy examples out there in PHP, python or any other language that doesn't have cross-domain restrictions. As far as your script on the page is then concerned it's a local AJAX request. If you can't do that then...
One possibility would be to use an intermediary like yql. yql and jquery can make a lot of these xml problems go away. Downside of course is that you are sending things through a third party that you have no control over.

Something like this:

// find some demo xml - DuckDuckGo is great for this
    var xmlSource = "http://api.duckduckgo.com/?q=StackOverflow&format=xml"

// build the yql query. Could be just a string - I think join makes easier reading
    var yqlURL = [
        "http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql",
        "?q=" + encodeURIComponent("select * from xml where url='" + xmlSource + "'"),
        "&format=xml&callback=?"
    ].join("");

// Now do the AJAX heavy lifting        
    $.getJSON(yqlURL, function(data){
        xmlContent = $(data.results[0]);
        var Abstract = $(xmlContent).find("Abstract").text();
        console.log(Abstract);
    });

Of course, in that example you are bringing back all the xml data and searching it locally - the option is there to tune the select statement to bring back just what you want.

Hope that helps

edited Jun 25, 2014 at 3:07

answered Jun 25, 2014 at 2:58

PerryW

1,4361 gold badge16 silver badges26 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

adarsh723 Over a year ago

Thanks a lot Perry.. your second option gave me the hack... i used local AJAX request on one of my page and then PHP and CURL saved me....

Old Badman Grey Over a year ago

Duck duck go's api changed? the example logs empty string. Using yql seems to work though.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Cross Domain JSONP XML Response

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related