XMLHttpRequest Reference (转自MDN)

XMLHttpRequest

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Method overview
2. Properties
   1. Non-standard properties
3. Methods
   1. abort()
   2. getAllResponseHeaders()
   3. getResponseHeader()
   4. open()
   5. overrideMimeType()
   6. send()
      1. Notes
   7. setRequestHeader()
      1. Parameters
   8. Non-standard methods
      1. init()
      2. openRequest()
   9. sendAsBinary()
4. Notes
   1. 1. Events
5. Browser compatibility
6. See also

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XMLHttpRequest is a JavaScript object that was designed by Microsoft and adopted by Mozilla, Apple, and Google. It's now beingstandardized in the W3C. It provides an easy way to retrieve data at a URL. Despite its name, XMLHttpRequest can be used to retrieve any type of data, not just XML, and it supports protocols other than HTTP (including file and ftp).

To create an instance of XMLHttpRequest, simply do this:

var req = new XMLHttpRequest();

For details about how to use XMLHttpRequest, see Using XMLHttpRequest.

Method overview

void abort();
DOMString getAllResponseHeaders();
DOMString? getResponseHeader(DOMString header);
void open(DOMString method, DOMString url, optional boolean async, optional DOMString? user, optional DOMString? password);
void overrideMimeType(DOMString mime);
void send(); void send(ArrayBuffer data); void send(Blob data); void send(Document data); void send(DOMString? data); void send(FormData data);
void setRequestHeader(DOMString header, DOMString value);
Non-standard methods
[noscript] void init(in nsIPrincipal principal, in nsIScriptContext scriptContext, in nsPIDOMWindow ownerWindow);
[noscript] void openRequest(in AUTF8String method, in AUTF8String url, in boolean async, in AString user, in AString password);
void sendAsBinary(in DOMString body);

Properties

Attribute	Type	Description
onreadystatechange	Function?	A JavaScript function object that is called whenever the readyState attribute changes. The callback is called from the user interface thread. Warning: This must not be used from native code. You should also not use this with synchronous requests.
readyState	unsigned short	The state of the request: Value State Description 0 UNSENT open()has not been called yet. 1 OPENED send()has not been called yet. 2 HEADERS_RECEIVED send() has been called, and headers and status are available. 3 LOADING Downloading; responseText holds partial data. 4 DONE The operation is complete.
response	varies	The response entity body according to responseType, as an ArrayBuffer, Blob, Document , JavaScript object (for "json"), or string. This is null if the request is not complete or was not successful.
responseText	DOMString	The response to the request as text, or null if the request was unsuccessful or has not yet been sent. Read-only.
responseType	XMLHttpRequestResponseType	Can be set to change the response type. This tells the server what format you want the response to be in. Value Data type of response property "" (empty string) String (this is the default) "arraybuffer" ArrayBuffer "blob" Blob "document" Document "json" JavaScript object, parsed from a JSON string returned by the server "text" String
responseXML	Document?	The response to the request as a DOM Document object, or null if the request was unsuccessful, has not yet been sent, or cannot be parsed as XML or HTML. The response is parsed as if it were a text/xml stream. When theresponseType is set to "document" and the request has been made asynchronously, the response is parsed as it were a text/html stream . Read-only. Note: If the server doesn't apply the  text/xml Content-Type header, you can use  overrideMimeType()to force  XMLHttpRequest to parse it as XML anyway.
status	unsigned short	The status of the response to the request. This is the HTTP result code (for example, status is 200 for a successful request). Read-only.
statusText	DOMString	The response string returned by the HTTP server. Unlike status, this includes the entire text of the response message ("200 OK", for example). Read-only.
upload	XMLHttpRequestUpload	The upload process can be tracked by adding an event listener to upload.
withCredentials	boolean	Indicates whether or not cross-site Access-Control requests should be made using credentials such as cookies or authorization headers. The default is false. Note: This never affects same-site requests.

Non-standard properties

Attribute	Type	Description
channel	nsIChannel	The channel used by the object when performing the request. This is null if the channel hasn't been created yet. In the case of a multi-part request, this is the initial channel, not the different parts in the multi-part request. Requires elevated privileges to access; read-only.
mozBackgroundRequest	boolean	Indicates whether or not the object represents a background service request. If true, no load group is associated with the request, and security dialogs are prevented from being shown to the user. Requires elevated privileges to access. In cases in which a security dialog (such as authentication or a bad certificate notification) would normally be shown, the request simply fails instead.
mozResponseArrayBufferRequires Gecko 2.0Obsolete since Gecko 6	ArrayBuffer	The response to the request, as a JavaScript typed array. This is NULL if the request was not successful, or if it hasn't been sent yet. Read only.
multipart	boolean	Indicates whether or not the response is expected to be a stream of possibly multiple XML documents. If set to true, the content type of the initial response must be multipart/x-mixed-replace or an error will occur. All requests must be asynchronous. This enables support for server push; for each XML document that's written to this request, a new XML DOM document is created and the onload handler is called between documents. Note: When this is set, the  onload handler and other event handlers are not reset after the first XMLdocument is loaded, and the  onload handler is called after each part of the response is received.

Methods

abort()

Aborts the request if it has already been sent.

getAllResponseHeaders()

DOMString getAllResponseHeaders();

Returns all the response headers as a string, or null if no response has been received. Note: For multipart requests, this returns the headers from the current part of the request, not from the original channel.

getResponseHeader()

DOMString? getResponseHeader(DOMString header);

Returns the string containing the text of the specified header, or null if either the response has not yet been received or the header doesn't exist in the response.

open()

Initializes a request. This method is to be used from JavaScript code; to initialize a request from native code, use openRequest()instead.

Note: Calling this method an already active request (one for which  open()or  openRequest()has already been called) is the equivalent of calling  abort().

void open(
   DOMString method,
   DOMString url,
   optional boolean async,
   optional DOMString user,
   optional DOMString password
);

Parameters

method

The HTTP method to use; either "POST" or "GET". Ignored for non-HTTP(S) URLs.

url

The URL to which to send the request.

async

An optional boolean parameter, defaulting to  true, indicating whether or not to perform the operation asynchronously. If this value is  false, the  send()method does not return until the response is received. If  true, notification of a completed transaction is provided using event listeners. This  must be true if the  multipartattribute is  true, or an exception will be thrown.

user

The optional user name to use for authentication purposes; by default, this is an empty string.

password

The optional password to use for authentication purposes; by default, this is an empty string.

overrideMimeType()

Overrides the MIME type returned by the server. This may be used, for example, to force a stream to be treated and parsed as text/xml, even if the server does not report it as such.This method must be called before send().

void overrideMimeType(DOMString mimetype);

send()

Sends the request. If the request is asynchronous (which is the default), this method returns as soon as the request is sent. If the request is synchronous, this method doesn't return until the response has arrived.

Note: Any event listeners you wish to set must be set before calling send().

void send();
void send(ArrayBuffer data);
void send(Blob data);
void send(Document data);
void send(DOMString? data);
void send(FormData data);

Notes

If the data is a Document, it is serialized before being sent. When sending a Document, versions of Firefox prior to version 3 always send the request using UTF-8 encoding; Firefox 3 properly sends the document using the encoding specified by body.xmlEncoding, or UTF-8 if no encoding is specified.

If it's an nsIInputStream, it must be compatible with nsIUploadChannel's setUploadStream()method. In that case, a Content-Length header is added to the request, with its value obtained using nsIInputStream's available()method. Any headers included at the top of the stream are treated as part of the message body. The stream's MIMEtype should be specified by setting the Content-Type header using the setRequestHeader()method prior to calling send().

setRequestHeader()

Sets the value of an HTTP request header.You must call open() before using this method.

void setRequestHeader(
   DOMString header,
   DOMString value
);

Parameters

header

The name of the header whose value is to be set.

value

The value to set as the body of the header.

Non-standard methods

init()

Initializes the object for use from C++code.

Warning: This method must  not be called from JavaScript.

[noscript] void init(
   in nsIPrincipal principal,
   in nsIScriptContext scriptContext,
   in nsPIDOMWindow ownerWindow
);

Parameters

principal

The principal to use for the request; must not be  null.

scriptContext

The script context to use for the request; must not be  null.

ownerWindow

The window associated with the request; may be  null.

openRequest()

Initializes a request. This method is to be used from native code; to initialize a request from JavaScript code, use open()instead. See the documentation for open().

Requires Gecko 1.9 (Firefox 3)

sendAsBinary()

A variant of the send()method that sends binary data.

void sendAsBinary(
   in DOMString body
);

Parameters

body

The request body as a DOMstring. This data is converted to a string of single-byte characters by truncation (removing the high-order byte of each character).

Notes

• By default, Firefox 3 limits the number of XMLHttpRequest connections per server to 6 (previous versions limit this to 2 per server). Some interactive web sites may keep an XMLHttpRequest connection open, so opening multiple sessions to such sites may result in the browser hanging in such a way that the window no longer repaints and controls don't respond. This value can be changed by editing the network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server preference in about:config.
• From Gecko 7.0 headers set by setRequestHeader() are sent with the request when following a redirect. Previously these headers would not be sent.
• XMLHttpRequest is implemented in Gecko using the nsIXMLHttpRequest , nsIXMLHttpRequestEventTarget , and nsIJSXMLHttpRequest interfaces.

Events

onreadystatechange as a property on the xhr object is supported in all browsers.

Since then, a number of additional event handlers were implemented in various browsers (onload, onerror, onprogress, etc.). These are supported in Firefox. In particular, see nsIXMLHttpRequestEventTarget and Using XMLHttpRequest.

More recent browsers, including Firefox, also support listening to the XMLHttpRequest events via standard addEventListener APIs in addition to setting on* properties to a handler function.

Browser compatibility

• Desktop 
• Mobile

Feature	Chrome	Firefox (Gecko)	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari (WebKit)
Basic support (XHR1)	1	1.0	5 (via ActiveXObject) 7 (XMLHttpRequest)	(Yes)	1.2
send(ArrayBuffer)	9	9	?	11.60	?
send(Blob)	7	3.6	?	12	?
send(FormData)	6	4	?	12	?
response	10	6	10	11.60	?
responseType = 'arraybuffer'	10	6	10	11.60	?
responseType = 'blob'	19	6	10	12	?
responseType = 'document'	18	11	--	--	--
responseType = 'json'	--	10	--	12	--
Progress Events	7	3.5	10	12	?
withCredentials	3	3.5	10	12	4

See also

• MDN articles about XMLHttpRequest:
  • AJAX - Getting Started
  • Using XMLHttpRequest
  • HTML in XMLHttpRequest
  • FormData
• XMLHttpRequest references from W3C and browser vendors:
  • W3C: XMLHttpRequest (base features)
  • W3C: XMLHttpRequest (latest editor's draft with extensions to the base functionality, formerly XMLHttpRequest Level 2
  • Microsoft documentation
  • Apple developers' reference
• "Using the XMLHttpRequest Object" (jibbering.com)
• XMLHttpRequest - REST and the Rich User Experience
• HTML5 Rocks - New Tricks in XMLHttpRequest2