XMLHttpRequest: responseText property

{{APIRef("XMLHttpRequest API")}} {{AvailableInWorkers("window_and_worker_except_service")}}

The read-only {{domxref("XMLHttpRequest")}} property responseText returns the text received from a server following a request being sent.

Value

A string which contains either the textual data received using the XMLHttpRequest or "" if the request failed or if no content has been received yet.

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 {{domxref("XMLHttpRequest.readyState", "readyState")}} becomes XMLHttpRequest.DONE (4), and {{domxref("XMLHttpRequest.status", "status")}} becomes 200 ("OK").

Exceptions

• InvalidStateError {{domxref("DOMException")}}
  • : Thrown if the {{domxref("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.

Examples

const xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open("GET", "/server", true);

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

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

xhr.send(null);

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}