Question

According to JavaScript: The Definitive Guide: “Despite its name, innerHTML can be used with XML elements as well as HTML elements”.

However, when I actually attempt to access the innerHTML property of an XML Element object, undefined is returned:

var xml = $.ajax({url: "test.xml", async: false}).responseXML.documentElement;
console.log(xml.innerHTML); // displays "undefined" in console log

What is the explanation for this behavior?

test.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<foo><bar>baz</bar></foo>

Answer 1

The explanation is that the book is wrong on this point.

XML elements in IE have a non-standard xml property that provides the equivalent of innerHTML. For other browsers you’ll need to use an XMLSerializer.