Question

I simply need to get the ‘html’ from a particular (cross domain) request.

I’m using the JQuery.ajax() function passing dataType=json so that JQuery generates a script tag and fires off the request.
Here’s the code:

            var url="http://www.google.com/callback=?";
            $.ajax({
                type: 'GET',
                url: url,
                dataType: 'json',
                success: function(data) {$("#out").append("success "+data); },
                error: function(data) {$("#out").append("failure "+data); },
                complete: function(data) {$("#out").append("complete "+data); },
                data: {},
                async: false
            });

Now, the odd bit is that, using firebug, I do see the generated script tag AND the response from the remote server, but none of my callbacks are being called.

How do I get the html returned from the ajax() call? Am I using the wrong function in the first place?

Answer 1

The callback isn’t called because the document returned is not a JavaScript application consisting of a function call to that callback.

JSON-P works by running third party JS that calls a function on your page.

You can’t use client side code to get content that isn’t expressed as JavaScript from a different origin.

If you want to get such content then you need to proxy it through a server. Either one on the same origin (so you can get the content directly) or one that transforms it to JSON-P.