Web/API/XMLHTTPRequest/responseText

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

Syntax

var resultText = XMLHttpRequest.responseText;

Value

A DOMString 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

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.

Example

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

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

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

xhr.send(null);

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
XMLHttpRequest	Living Standard	WHATWG living standard

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table in this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

Update compatibility data on GitHub

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

Legend

Full support  

Full support

See implementation notes.'

See implementation notes.

XMLHttpRequest.responseText by Mozilla Contributors is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.5.